EverClear Reunited
by Chandler1200
Summary: For years EverClear has toured the world and lead the charts without their missing members. But when circumstances bring everyone back together after more than twenty years, will everyone get their happily ever after?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Twilight universe.

Wow! It's been a long time since I typed those words. But anyway….

Welcome back Groupies! I can't tell you how much I've missed you. Just for a reference point, this will pick up right after Epilogue 2 of Revamped. Not going to tell you much about what's in store but I will tell you there is no Sebastian or violence or anything like that.

So have fun and I'll see you at the bottom.

Chapter 1- Visitors

EPOV

"Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there…."

"Shut up!"

"Hush"

"Paul! Enough!"

I laughed to myself as at least three familiar voices yelled at the thirteen year old carbon copy of his father. Truly, he couldn't be more like him if he tried from everything I knew.

"What? What is it?" Alice asked me, with a very amused expression on her face. She might not have known exactly "what" was happening but it didn't take much to figure out "who" I was chuckling at.

"Oh, nothing. Just a very excited and very annoying teenager bothering the shit out of his family," I said as a distinct "whack" registered in the mind of said teenager.

"They're close enough for you to hear?"

"Yep. Less than two minutes out."

I watched as my sister simultaneously squealed, bounced, grabbed the handle of the car door and flung it out with much more force than was actually necessary.

"Hey! Watch it, Ali. Don't mess up my baby."

"As if," she snorted as she walked to the front of the car and leaned against the hood, earning another glare from me. "You are nearly as possessive over this car as you are your wife." Before I could even begin to respond to that little insult, my sister interrupted me with a wave of her hand and asked "She still doesn't have any idea?"

"Well, you would know better than I, oh Great One. You tell me. And just for the record, I am more possessive of my wife than I will ever be of a car, thank you very much."

"No, she doesn't," she answered, choosing to ignore my statement. "Jesus, I can't wait," she said just as a large bus rounded the corner and came into view. It was a very non-descript gray with a faded red and blue logo of a commercial bus line painted on both sides. The windows were all tinted a dark color and it had enough dust covering it to nearly eradicate any visible tags. Only the satellite dish that was mounted to the rear of the bus gave away that it might be something more than the economy mode of transportation that the bus company advertised.

Slower than the average tortoise, the bus made its way down the main street of the town closest to our newest location. It was the main street Razorback Montana to be exact. The tiny blip of a town consisted of exactly eleven buildings. A post office, a city building, a restaurant, a tavern and a handful of shops lined each side of the road. And really, how many businesses were required for a town with a population of less than fifteen hundred people? The single traffic light in the town was basically useless considering that I had never once seen more than four vehicles on this street at one time in the five years we had been living here.

Our family was split nearly evenly between being completely enraptured with the speck of a town and being absolutely bored to tears with it. My wife and my mother fell into the first category, hence my own fondness for it. Anything that made the two of them as happy as this remote place did was a winner in my book. It was actually my wife that had found our home here. Several years earlier, we had all been living outside of Vancouver. My idiot brother had challenged her to a footrace after a bet they had made on a track and field event (and really, who besides the two of them would even think to bet over the gender of the participants in a women's event? So imagine how upset Emmett had been when Bella had been correct in her assertion that the winner was in fact a man!). They had run from Vancouver to Montana before either of them would admit that they were pretty evenly matched in terms of speed and that they both had infinite stamina, therefore rendering the race ridiculous and unnecessary. But she had run straight into the grounds that surrounded the property and instantly fallen in love. Before any of us knew that the town of Razorback, Montana existed, she had bought the property, claiming "fate" had led her to the house.

And I had to give it to her, our home here was truly magnificent. It was by no means the most extravagant of our houses but it was truly unique for us. The main house had, at one time long ago, been an inn. "A country escape" as she explained to me when she told me about it. What made this home special was that it had eight master suites, each complete with its own bathroom and a family room that was roughly the size of our entire home in Forks. The two story stone fire place that was large enough for Emmett to stand up in had offered us many nights of quiet conversations, obnoxiously loud arguments and a general sense of just being content with each other's company.

Now add to that the eight cottages that surrounded the main house, the extremely large garage we had built and the three thousand acres of land that surrounded it and it was nearly the perfect place for us. It was completely isolated and completely self contained. The few people from the town that had been curious about us when we first arrived all believed that we had created some sort of "New Age" health spa or something like that…you know, commune with nature, meditate, or whatever else makes you feel good. So they deemed us weirdoes and nut jobs from the very beginning and left us alone.

As the bus inched closer and closer to us, my own excitement grew. Not only at the prospect of seeing my wife's reaction to the surprise of the new arrivals but also at seeing the people that I had also missed dearly.

"He is still an absolute fool," my sister cackled as she pointed to the bus, now only three hundred yards away.

"You expected anything else?" I asked as I followed her finger and looked into the window of the approaching bus.

And came face to face, so to speak, with a bare ass pressed against the window.

"Idiot," I snorted as said ass began to wiggle in time with the music playing inside the bus.

The next moment, a slightly smaller but no less naked, second ass pressed against the window side by side with the first.

"Lord, help us, there are two of them now," I said as I watched a small delicate hand smack both butts from behind them. The grin on my face could not have been any wider at that point.

The bus rolled to a stop ten feet from us and the door opened with a very audible creak.

"Eddie!" the deep gravely voice that could only belong to JP shouted toward me as he stepped out of the bus, classic smirk in place and still clutching the front of his unbuttoned pants

"Asshole!" I returned equally as loudly as I opened my arms to him. This wasn't the typical "guy" hug at all. It never was with JP. It was full on contact and slaps on the back, both of us smiling like morons.

I stepped back just enough to get a good look at him. The dreadlocks were long gone, replaced with straight brown hair that fell to just below his shoulders. The only facial piercings that he still wore were three bars through his left eyebrow, each topped with a different colored stone. I knew, without asking, that they represented the birthstones of each of his children. There were laugh lines around his eyes and mouth that crinkled when he smiled and I could see the strands of gray mixed into his hair. But he still had a wicked twinkle in his eye and a loud laugh for me.

Not only did he look really good for a man about to turn fifty, he'd actually never looked better. He was healthy and happy and most importantly, in a very good place in his life.

"Damn! You look good for an old man," I teased.

"Oh, fuck you buddy! How old are you now?" he whispered as he leaned in toward me. "Actually, it's a lil creepy lookin' at you. You still look like the same little punk ass I met in Atlanta."

"Ignore him, Edward," Heidi laughed as she stepped from the bus and wound her arms around my waist. "He's just jealous." I hugged her back carefully, all the while snickering at JP and his mock glare. "He'd give anything to still look like he used to."

"So not true, wench," he said as he kissed her on the temple.

"How have you managed it?" I asked as I looked down at her, my arm still around her shoulder. "He used to eat like a horse and gave no thought at all to what he put in his body. It's actually a miracle he's been around this long come to think of it."

"Well, he still eats like he's got a tapeworm; I just make sure that now and then he eats something that's actually good for him. And running around after our brood doesn't hurt," she said as she glanced over her shoulder into the bus to check on said brood.

"Now that is quite a feat and very true," Alice laughed as she hugged JP. "How you doing wild man?"

"Ali! How's my girl?"

The four of us stood there and greeted each other for just a few minutes. It hadn't been that long since we'd last seen them. It was just under three months since the ceremony at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony and we'd spent some time with everyone later on that night. But it had been a very long time since we'd gotten to spend more than a couple of hours with any of them. And standing here, away from the crowds, it was like no time at all had passed since we'd all been family.

"Where's Chip?" Alice asked Heidi as the both looked toward the bus as a crash sounded from inside."

"No worries, Ma," Paul shouted, earning a chuckle from all four of us.

"He's sleeping," she said as she craned her neck to see if anyone or anything was damaged in the crash from inside. "He's in the back room. We figured since we still had a little over an hour left on the drive, we'd let him sleep. This crew wears him slam out," she said as she faced us again, a beautiful smile on her face.

"I'll bet it does," I quipped. "Speaking of this crew, how much do they…"

"Well," JP interrupted, already seeing where I was going. "When the rest of the band gets here in a couple of days, obviously they know everything. But none of the kiddos do. They just know who you guys are, that she used to play with us and that you guys send the most rockin' presents at birthdays and Christmas. Oh, and that we all love you," he snickered. "But they actually don't know about the…" he trailed off, only to make an asinine gesture of fangs.

"Fool!" I laughed loudly as I swatted his hand away. "That's probably the best way to keep it," I finished quietly as I spied Paul trying to listen in on the conversation.

"Speaking of…where is Bitch?" he asked with an evil grin. I couldn't help but laugh again. Some things truly never would change.

"She's at home. She still doesn't know anything about any of this," I said with a rather wicked smirk of my own.

"Oh, fucking excellent! Well, damn, let's get this little party on the road shall we."

"Sounds good," Alice and I said at the same time.

"Nice fucking ride there," he said appreciatively as he eyed my pride and joy. Although, personally, I didn't think that "nice ride" quite did justice to the 2010 BMW 6 series convertible, fully restored and show room perfect. I couldn't help it, I grinned as I thought about the look on Bella's face when she'd given it to me as an anniversary present.

I looked at JP to tell him to follow us, but the words died in my throat as I saw the look on his face. It was pure excitement and anticipation. Probably, very similar to the look on my own face. I cut my eyes to Alice, who immediately picked up on what I was thinking and nodded in approval.

"Want to ride with us?" I asked JP.

"Hell, no. I wanna drive that fucker," he said with a bark.

"Sure, just don't kill us," I said with a wink as I fished the keys from my pocket.

"Mom! Can I please?" he said as he looked at Heidi, who burst out laughing at the innocent expression on his face.

"Edward? You sure you know what you're saying 'yes' to?" she asked me, already walking backward toward the open door of the bus.

"I'm sure. We'll take our chances with him."

"Okay," she said in a very stern motherly tone looking at him as if her were fifteen instead of fifty. "Behave and play nice."

Only five minutes later, we were on the way back to the compound, as Emmett called it, with the large bus in the rearview mirror. JP was grinning madly as he drove and I was nearly vibrating with excitement as I sat next to him. Alice was in the back seat; quietly humming what I thought was actually an EverClear song under her breath. I reached for my phone and pushed the speed dial button for my wife, making a gesture toward JP for him to be quiet.

"Yeah?" her beautiful voice said distractedly through the phone.

My shoulders shook as I tried to keep my own laugh in. I could hear the tinkling of the piano quietly in the background.

"Hey, gorgeous," I said as Alice and JP both snickered. Okay, yeah, so I couldn't help myself. Every time I heard her voice, it tuned me into a blithering idiot.

"Hey sexy," she said, still sounding distracted.

"Where are you?" I asked, already having an idea.

"The studio."

"The studio," Alice said with a roll of her eyes from behind me. JP's eyebrows shot up at the mention of the word.

"You guys on the way home?" she asked sweetly.

"Yeah, we'll be there in an hour or so. When did you and Jasper get back?"

"About two hours ago," she huffed. "He didn't even seem that thirsty. I don't know why in hell we had to go out last night."

Alice and I both laughed at her impatience. She would never say no to a request from any of our family to go hunting with them but particularly not one from Jasper. They two of them had grown as close and Alice and I had always been over the years. We had asked him to take her out not only as a precaution for the visitors that we had coming but also so that we could firm up the plans for their arrival. Apparently, it still hadn't registered with her that today was her birthday and that maybe that had something to do with getting her out of the house.

"Well, I'm sure he appreciated it," I said slightly patronizingly. "You need anything while we're in town?"

"Ha! Town! Right," she giggled. "That's classic baby, really. Oh! I know. Bring me a milkshake," she snickered.

"Very funny love, very funny. Okay baby, we'll see you when we get home. I love you."

"Uh huh, love you too," she said as she disconnected, the piano keys already playing again in the background.

"Aww," JP said in a sickeningly sweet voice. "Baby, that's so fucking cute I think I'm gonna hurl."

"I love fucking with your wife," Alice said gleefully as she leaned in between the seats. "She is going to flip when she see what we've brought her from town."

"This is just too classic, Eddie." JP said, looking very much relieved to not have to be quiet anymore. "I can't believe that we've managed to pull this off without her knowing."

"I know," I said as I looked down at his foot, almost willing him to step on the gas. I was beyond eager to get back home and see the look on her face.

Chapter Notes: So what do you think? I know it's not much to go on yet but I still want to hear what you guys have to say about the return of my favorite musician.

Posting will be once a week with maybe a couple of bonus chapters thrown in. There are a couple of surprises that I may not be able to hold out from giving you guys early.

Also, how about a little interactive fan fiction? If you remember, Jane and Felix have 5 sons. And I need to come up with some names for them. I'm not very versed in male names, so help me out with some suggestions please.

See ya very soon!

Kelly


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Twilight universe.

OMG! I cannot believe the response from you guys. Apparently, ya'll missed these guys as much as I did! Every single review that comes into my email makes me squeal like a little kid. Seriously, they are wondering if I'm losing my sanity at work because every time my phone chimes with a new email, I smile and bounce.

A little house keeping first. Thank you guys for pointing out the rating to me! I had no idea I had missed marked this story as "K". Trust me…any of you that have read any of my stories should know I couldn't NOT have an "M" rated story. I need my sexy vampire way to freakin' much!

Thanks to everyone that sent me boys names also! I have some great choices. We won't see a huge amount of these boys in the story but they will pop up along the ride and it seemed very unfair to just call them "boy 1" and "boy 2".

Special thanks to my baby girl for letting me annoy the crap out of her by making her read through the first drafts to find all my typos and over used words! Love ya kiddo!

Chapter 2- Take Me Home Country Home

JP POV

Goddamn, life didn't get much better than this.

Cruising down a country fuckin' lane in a quarter million dollar car, my crew of munchkins behind me laughing and caring on, wearin' my gal's platinum band on my finger and headin' to spend a few weeks with my Bitch. Yeah, couldn't actually think of a better place to be in life. Except maybe…

"Fuckin' hell, is there anything but cows in this state?" I asked sincerely, looking over at Eddie as he smiled at his phone like a dork.

Laughter filled the small interior as not only Eddie but Alice also laughed at me. The sound was like flippin' music as the noise filled the air. It was so light and happy and I knew that my life wasn't the only one that was good.

"There are a handful of things besides cows. A couple of trees, some birds…" Edward said snarkily. He shifted in his seat so that his back was against the door and looked at me with an amused smile on his face. "So how are you, man? Tell me what's been going on."

"Oh, the usual. Touring, playing, and traveling. Not much has changed over the years."

That was actually true I thought to myself as I smiled into the sun and greenness ahead of me. The venues had changed from clubs to arenas and the mode of transportation had greatly improved but otherwise it was essentially exactly the same thing I'd been doing for twenty-five years.

"Speaking of modes of transportation," Edward said curiously. Damn, I'd forgotten how freaky the little shit could be with his Jedi mind tricks. "What's with the bus? I thought you'd be traveling in style."

"Well, we fly most of the time from location to location. But the bus gives us a chance to travel without all the fans realizing that it's us, ya know? I mean, don't get me wrong, I love seeing all the people screaming and yelling for us. They're what have made us over the years. But especially with the kids, it can be overwhelming. The Silver Bullet lets us travel incognito."

"Oh, a fifty cent word from the rock star!" Alice squealed. "I'm impressed."

"Shut it, Pixie."

"Aww, I love you lunatic," she said sweetly as she hugged me from the back seat.

"You just want me, darling. Admit it!" I laughed as she smacked the back of my head.

"Hey, don't hit him while he's driving. He wrecks and I'll have to kill you both," Edward whined. We both just laughed at him.

"You writing much?" Edward asked with real curiosity in his voice.

"Not a whole lot lately," I sighed. For the last several months, I'd been struggling with some new stuff that was floating around in my head. But I could never seem to get it out the way I wanted. Just couldn't make it come together. Hell, maybe I was just worn out. We hadn't stopped touring long enough for me to settle my head and just get it all out. Besides, I was never the song writer that my girl was.

"So tell me about you guys," I said, changing the subject. "You know all about me, fuck, everyone does. Can't fart without it being in a paper. You guys are the ones living under the rocks. Tell me about my Bitch."

"Well, what do you want to know?"

"For starters, how the hell did you guys end up in Bum-Fuck Montana? Last time we really talked, you guys were in Canada somewhere. "

"That would be my darling sister, "Ali said as she slid forward until she was all but sitting on the console. "She found the house and its occupant," she said with a grin at Edward, who shook his head and laughed. "It was love at first sight and you know this one," she nudged Edward with her elbow.

"Yeah," I snorted. I knew exactly what she was talking about. If Bitch told Edward she wanted a purple polka dotted yak ass mounted on her wall, he'd have it for her in half an hour. "Wait! Occupant? What the fuck does that mean?"

"Ugh, well," Edward said uncomfortably. "Bella has a dog. It was living at the house when she found it and I think she actually bought the property just so that the mutt wouldn't have to go anywhere."

"JP, you won't believe this thing!" Alice cackled.

"Wait!" I nearly screamed in hysterics. "Don't you guys, like, eat dogs? What the hell, bro? You mean, she actually has is like a pet or something?"

"Yes, it's a pet," Edward said with a little exasperation in his voice. "And I have never once eaten dog in my life, thank you very fucking much."

"But seriously, wait until you see this thing," Alice interrupted. "It looks like it's made with all the left over canine parts. Long floppy ears, big giant head, curly tail and little stumpy legs. Plus, the poor little thing is blind, so it spends most of it's time following her around and running into bushes and rocks. He's really sweet but sort of pathetic too."

I couldn't wrap my head around this little tidbit. I was gonna torture Bitch over her blind mutt. But really, what vampire on earth adopts a blind stupid dog?

"Just don't tease the dog," Edward warned. "Tease her about it all you want, she understands it's a bizarre situation. But Lord help you if you tease the dog itself. She went apes hit on Emmett about a month after we moved in because he pulled the thing's tail."

My eyes were watering I was laughing so hard. God, it was like a real life version of the Twilight Zone.

"Take a right at the next road," Edward said through his own laughter. "It's about a mile up ahead. Then we drive for about forty miles."

"Shit fire! How far out in the boonies ya'll livin'?"

"Redneck!" Edward teased with a smirk. "Your grammar has gotten worse over the years instead of better and yes, we live a very long way from anyone."

"JP, will you tell me something?" Alice chirped as I watched the bus turn right behind us.

"Anything. You know that."

"He's filterless Alice. Be very careful what you ask," Edward teased.

"How can you guys take month long vacations? Don't the kids have school?"

"Ah, Padowan, that we have covered. When we decided to bring the whole crew with us when we toured," I said as I smiled. I always fucking smiled when I thought about my kiddos. "We had to make arrangements. And really, what choice did we have? There was no way I was touring without Heidi after Paul was born and then Jane and Felix popped up hitched and she stayed pregnant for like ten years."

Both Edward and Ali laughed at that one. Edward harder than his sister as he apparently pulled the image of Jane on stage dressed in leather and eight months pregnant.

"So Nana Chip and Marcus came up with the idea of home schooling once the kids started getting old enough. It's been really amazing though. We've taken them all over the place and they haven't missed a thing. And Chip and Marcus love all the time they get with the kids. It's sort of turned into a pretty cool adventure for all of us. We all pitch in with different things and end up learning from the youngins."

"It's still so strange for me to imagine you a dad," Edward said. I looked over at him expecting a smirk. But I was kind of stunned at what I saw. He looked…sad. Or envious.

"I gotta tell ya, man. Being a dad is the greatest thing in my life. I love Heidi more than my own life. And I love my music dearly. But my kids? Fuck, I can't even put into words what they mean to me. Just watchin' them, listening to them, spending time with them. It's amazing. I want to be the dad those little people deserve."

I couldn't help but get sappy. My kids were my whole damn world and I was proud as hell of them. They were such amazing kids. And I didn't mean that just because they were mine. I really and truly thought they were the three most extraordinary people I'd ever met.

"Tell me about them," Edward said with a small smile.

"Well, Paul is…hell; Paul is just fucking like me. Drives me nuts," I laughed as I thought of my boy. "Thirteen years old and already a dawg in the makin'. I think he looks like his mama but she says he looks like me."

"He does look like you," Alice and Edward both said at the same time.

"I think he's got enough of my gal in him to make him prettier than I am," I conceded.

"Not to mention, no facial metal," Edward jabbed.

"At least not yet," Alice chimed in.

"And he's so damn talented it's scary."

"He plays?" Edward asked with obvious interest. I knew that would pique his interest.

"Yeah," I said proudly. "And he's more talented than I'll ever be."

Alice let out a whistle and Edward grinned like a Cheshire cat. So did I for that matter.

"Jared, on the other hand, couldn't care less about music. All the lil' maniac is interested in running at top speed and kicking the living shit out of anything that doesn't kick back. Well, come to think of it, he actually doesn't care if it does kick back, as long as it doesn't kick too hard. He's gonna be my soccer player. I think he's the spitting image of his Mom and everyone seems to agree with me. But he's a handful, that's for sure. And a temper…whew! I've never seen such a little dude get so fired up so quickly."

I glanced at Edward out of the corner of my eye and noticed he seemed fascinated. Alice looked like she was lost in thought but smiled very softly at me as I met her eyes in the rearview mirror. I smiled back at her but felt a little bad. They both seemed to be thinking about something that bothered them. And given the topic of conversation, I could guess what it was. It must be tough to know that neither of them would ever be able to share the feelings I was bursting with. I didn't know how much Edward had ever thought of having kids but I knew that Bitch had never said much of anything about the subject. I wondered if this was one of the few things that they had different opinions about. It was clear, with a single look, just how much it would have meant to Edward to be a father.

"And your daughter?" Alice asked a knowing look on her face. It was perfectly clear that I was wrapped around her tiny manicured finger, even without knowing a thing about her.

"God, what can I say about Isa that won't make me sound like a pussified jackass? She is just…amazing. She is so much like Bella it's almost scary. She is as beautiful as Heidi and smart as a fucking whip. Spends all her time with her nose buried in a book and a smile on her face like she knows a secret she's not spilling. She has Chip and Marcus completely wrapped. She's like a doll they can play dress up with all day long. But the kid's got a heart of gold. She's amazing," I finished gushing.

I looked over at Edward to find him smiling wider than I think I'd ever seen him. He was lit up like a Christmas tree in the passenger seat.

"You call her Isa and not Bella?"

"Yeah," I said kinda low. Fuck, it was no use, he'd get it out of me soon enough. "Well, obviously you know we named her after your girl. But when she was first born, Heidi got flipped out because I referred to her as "Lil B" a couple of times and she thought I was gonna end up callin' her 'Bitch'

"She was probably right!" Edward cackled as he doubled over laughing. "You know the first time I heard you call her that, I wanted to rip your head off. I didn't know that was a term of endearment. And even after I did, I hated it! Still do actually. But I gave up trying to correct you years ago."

"Smart man," I snorted. "I've been calling her that for so long it's almost ingrained."

Edward stretched his hand out, indicating a road up ahead on the left. I put the blinker on so that the bus would know we were turning soon. There was a very wide drive way lined by the biggest freakin' trees I'd ever seen and a black mailbox set about ten feet back from the road.

"Did you guys move to fucking Twelve Oaks?"

"Frankly my dear JP…" Alice said in the most fucked up Rhett Butler imitation I'd ever heard.

I could see Edward was about to jump out of his skin with excitement as we got closer and closer to the house. The drive way wound on and on for miles, taking us deeper into the forest. I could definitely see why they lived all the way out here. There wasn't a chance of anyone coming close to them.

"You ready to do this?" I asked as I pulled the car into the first curve of the circular drive in front of a massive house. "Should I tie a bow around my head or something?"

"Fuck yes, if I'd thought to bring one," Eddie howled.

A tiny hand shot forward with a huge red bow tied to a headband of some sort.

I snorted so hard I probably blew snot across the steering wheel as I killed the engine and looked toward the mondo fuckin' house to see the whole Cullen clan waiting for us with giant grins on all their faces. Even Rosie seemed to be off her "bitch" perch as she let out a laugh at somethin' Em said to her. They were all there…but one.

"Where's my Bitch?" I hollered before I even climbed all the way out of the car.

Chapter Notes: Just a quick two things….#1, this is NOT going to be a B/E baby story! They will talk about it some but don't get nervous that I'm going down that route. But hearing proud papa JP talk about his babies would make anyone feel a little envious.

And #2! Evanescence is releasing the first album in more than 5 years on Monday the 10th! I started the outline for this story more than a year ago, so the answer to the questions you guys had about if that was why I started writing again is no. But I am uber-excited about hearing the new stuff. Hopefully it will fit in well with the story. And even if it doesn't fit the story…it's Evanescence! Fuck, that's always worth listening to!

See ya next week and leave me some love! Make me purr….


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Twilight universe.

A/N: I am truly humbled by the response you guys have given the story so early on. I cannot tell you how much it means to me. No long speech here, just a very heart felt "thank you" to all the EC groupies.

I think there was a certain someone that some of you were mad that we didn't get to see in the first 2 chapters. Let's see if this makes you a lil' happier.

See ya at the bottom.

**Chapter 3-Home Sweet Home**

**BPOV**

"Good lord, B! How many times can you play the same song without getting totally fuckin' sick of it?" Jasper drawled out in his easy twang, bringing my fingers to a halt over the keys.

"If it's so terrible, why don't you just leave, Brother Dearest?" I snarked back to him as I rested my elbow on the ledge of the piano, giving him what I sincerely hoped was a "go to hell" smirk.

"Oh screw you, you know what I mean."

"No, actually I don't know how that statement could be taken any other way," I teased him with a sly grin.

"I'll just leave you to your solitude then, ya little shit," he sniped back, a shit-eating smile plastered on his face. He turned to leave just as the phone on top of the piano began to vibrate.

I truly loved my brother, but damn, what was with him this weekend? He had been on overdrive for three solid days now. And now, his hovering in my studio only minutes after we had returned from his completely unnecessary but still requested hunting trip only confirmed my suspicions.

The Cullen clan had something up their collective sleeves. And the ring leader was none other than…

"Yeah," I asked as I answered the phone, Claire de Lune still playing twenty years later, my fingers automatically playing the same piece on the keys in front of me.

"Hey gorgeous," he purred into ear as I clutched the mobile tightly with my shoulder. Jesus, would I ever quit reacting to his voice like a school girl?

"Hey, sexy."

"Where are you?" he asked with a smile in his voice.

"The studio," I said as I looked around the immaculate gift he'd given me right after we'd moved in.

We hadn't all been in the house more than two weeks when he'd asked me to take a walk with him and check out one of the guest cottages. He had led me slowly to the furthest structure from the house with a secretive grin on his face. I, being a complete pervert, had assumed that this was his idea of a romantic walk that would no doubt end up with both of us naked on the floor of the small house.

My jaw had fallen open when he pushed the door ajar to a completely renovated fully equipped studio. The second floor had been ripped away so that the entire space generated the most amazing acoustics I'd ever heard. He'd had the space split into a small room with a sound board and several digital recording devices and a much larger area for the instruments. The bulk of the space was a sound proofed room completely outfitted with a drum kit, several guitars both acoustic and electric and his baby grand piano from the house in Forks as well as the old upright piano from Seattle. There were multiple microphones wired from the ceiling and hanging above each instrument as well as a sound booth for recording vocals.

It was magnificent and completely overwhelming, by far the most extravagant and appreciated gift he'd ever given me. He had created the perfect space for us to continue playing and recording together. He'd even thought ahead enough to equip the studio with several long leather couches and chairs, a phone line so that we weren't completely cut off from the rest of the world and a small area behind the house with a stone patio that resembled the porch of the club in Atlanta where we'd first reconnected. Only this patio had a large fire pit and small pond with a waterfall designed specifically to relax me. It was the perfect space as far as I was concerned, made that much more so because of the remarkable amount of thought he'd put into it.

Needless to say, we did end up naked on the floor that night.

And many many nights afterwards as we wrote, played, laughed, talked and loved together.

"You guys on the way home?"

"Yeah, we'll be there in an hour or so. When did you and Jasper get back?"

"Two hours ago," I pouted, my irritation with my brother's strange behavior returning. "He didn't even seem that thirsty! I don't know why in the hell we had to go out last night."

"Well, I'm sure he appreciated it," he said with a snide tone of voice. It confirmed that they were up to something. "You need anything from town?"

Yeah right. Like there was anything in town other than a post office for my sisters to retrieve their armies of Federal Express packages. The snort I let out wasn't very loud at all but it was loud enough to disturb the dog curled up on the floor beside my piano bench. He let out a little "woof" of disturbance at the noise and shifted his body slightly. I reached down and lightly ran my fingers through the soft hair on the top of his head. Without opening his eyes, he stretched his head in my direction and nuzzled my hand more forcefully.

"Ha! Town! Right," I laughed as Buddy's wet nose tickled my palm as he attempted to get me to scratch his nose. "That's classic baby, really. Oh! I know. Bring pushed his me a milkshake!"

"Very funny, love. Very funny. Okay baby, we'll see you in a little while. I love you."

I smiled into the phone at his words. All these years later and I still swooned every time he said those three little words. It still seemed like an unimaginably good dream that my life was actually mine. It was everything I'd ever hoped for. With the exception of…

"Uh huh, I love you too," I said quietly as I tried to banish the thought.

I laid the small black phone back on the lid of the piano and brushed my fingers over the keys. My piano had been my most constant source of relief for as long as I could remember. Certainly since I'd been reborn it was second only to Edward in terms of the sheer amount of time I spent with it and my remaining human recollections seemed to indicate that it had been that way for a long time.

I didn't have many memories left prior to the last five years of my human life. I remembered my mother but not any thing specific about her aside from the way she looked sitting on a shore with the sun in her hair. My dad I remembered much more clearly. I could still smell the fragrance of gun oil and sweat and fallen leaves that he always had when he came home from work. I could still see in my mind's eye the way his eyes would squint when he said or heard something he didn't like. And I could vividly remember the way it felt when he'd hugged me, even though I knew that hadn't happened as often as I had wished.

The bulk of my human memories surrounded three people. Edward, of course and my surrogate family the last years I was human.

I sighed as I thought of Chip and then immediately smiled as I thought of JP. I missed them both terribly, if in very different ways. I missed Chip's unconditional acceptance and love. Even after I'd been changed, he'd never once shied away from me or shown me anything but love. Every time I hugged Carlisle or Esme, I thought of my other parent. It wasn't that my new family wasn't enough…God only knew how much I adored them all. I was happier with them than I'd ever imagined I could be. But apparently I was an incredibly selfish person. I wanted it all.

JP on the other hand, I missed because of the "pull no punches" attitude and ridiculous humor he'd brought to my life. He was every bit the brother that Jasper and Emmett were to me. I missed his barking laugh and his bizarre antics that never failed to make me laugh. But above all, I missed the connection that we'd had musically.

My music hadn't been discovered with my introduction to JP but it had absolutely been shaped and honed by it. He was the one that showed me how to pour my emotions and fears and love into the notes. The unspoken conversations we'd had with our instruments were some of my most vivid memories from my past life.

I looked down to see my hands playing of their seemingly own accord. Every time I got lost in missing Chip and JP, I seemed to go to another place in my head. The song I was playing wasn't actually a song at all, just a melody that had been in my head for a long time. But I had never been able to nail down anything other than the basic chords.

Writing with Edward was simply amazing. We had spent countless hours together, both here in the studio and in various rooms we'd set up at our homes over the years. And every experience had been special in its own way, whether because of the song we'd written or the bond that had grown or tightened between us. But the music we wrote together was very different than what I'd written with JP. The subjects were overall much darker but the music itself had a different vibe to it. Not as edgy.

And if I was honest, not as real.

Our life together was simply to wonderful for it to have the honest grit that made my EverClear music so special. It was the same way with playing and performing with EverMore. It was a fabulous way to keep the performer in me alive but not one of our performances ever felt as charged as even the tamest performance I'd given with JP and the rest of the guys.

Edward and I had discussed it several times, usually after sneaking in to see an EverClear show. He never said anything negative about the music I wrote, although deep down he had to agree with me about its authenticity. What he was vocal about was that, in his opinion, the music that EverClear had produced since I'd left wasn't the same as when the original lineup had been in place. According to him, if "Bring Me to Life" or "My Immortal" was the figurative "ten", then the music since I'd left was a seven or eight. It wasn't that he was being negative, and truly he loved the shows as much as I did; it was just that he didn't feel the raw power or limitless potential of the musicians was ever reached.

The jingle of the phone pulled my attention away from my inner monologue. I realized that somewhere lost in my memories, I'd started to play "My Immortal". The incoming text message popped up with a picture of Edward smiling at me from the tiny screen.

**Your presence is requested at the main house Beautiful**

I grinned back at the digital photo as I picked up the phone and put it in the back pocket of my jeans. I closed the lid on the keys and stepped over the bench. With a quiet look around the room that was my solace from my own mind, I cut the lights and headed for the front door to the cottage.

"Come on, Buddy," I said as I patted my leg.

The sweetheart of a dog looked toward the noise I made and slowly rose from the blanket he was curled up on, stretching first his front legs and then his back much like a cat would. Lord, I had to be the only vampire in history to keep a dog as a pet. But the moment those big brown eyes looked toward me, actually it was four inches away from what he thought he was looking at, and the sound of his pitiful whimper hit my ears, I'd melted. I was completely in love with the little thing. My brothers saw him as a constant source of ridicule and torture but thankfully limited the teasing to me. Emmett had learned the hard way just how protective of the little mutt I was when he'd tried to confuse him by pulling his tail and running the other way. It had taken him three days to convince me to return the fingers I'd ripped from his hand and only then after he'd sworn to never harass Buddy again.

I walked down the path that wound its way around the cottages at a slow pace. The air was clean and fresh, a hint of game in the air. The slight breeze that was blowing mixed the scents into a calming fragrance of home and love.

And diesel?

"What the hell is your Daddy up to Buddy?" I asked, almost expecting him to answer me.

Diesel fuel could only mean that my husband had found yet another vehicle that he just had to have. I chuckled as I made my way through Esme's garden behind the main house, whispering instructions to the dog at my heels on how to avoid the shrubs and trees as we wound our way together through the mass of fall flowers that bloomed as beautifully as a watercolor painting. As we neared the edge of the garden that lead to the path that would wind its way around the side of the house to the wide porch on the front , a scent that had no business being in my nose or my head hit me like a wrecking ball.

"What the…" I said quietly to myself as I sped up.

I rounded the side of the house and stood in the shadow of an ancient oak tree. I scanned the area with wide eyes; nearly afraid of not seeing what I knew logically wouldn't…no, couldn't be there. Edward was standing by the passenger side door of his BMW beaming and Alice was worming her way out of the back seat. And coming up the driveway very slowly was an extremely old bus. I registered my parents and siblings all standing on the covered porch watching as the ancient vehicle rolled the last hundred feet up the gravel.

"Where's my Bitch?" a voice I knew well said from inside the car as the driver's door opened.

I gasped, my had flying to my open mouth, as I watched JP unfold himself out of the car, a large red bow tied on his head. He was smiling a mile wide and had his arms extended out inviting a hug. Only he was looking toward the porch rather than the shadows on the corner of house where I hid.

"Bitch! Get you ass out here!"

I couldn't be seeing him here, at our home only moments after I'd been thinking about him. It simply had to be a figment of my imagination. My eyes immediately found the gentle and vibrant eyes of my husband, even as the fingers that still covered my lips started to tremble. He stared at back at me, a look of pure love coloring his beautiful face.

"Happy birthday, Baby," he whispered as the bus pulled to a stop behind him.

Chapter Notes: Okay guys, so now we have all the players in place. Well, at least most of them. You can imagine that the next chapter is the reunion we've been waiting for.

Has everyone heard the new album? If you take the time to review (and you guys all know that nothing makes me purr louder or edit faster), drop me a line with your opinions.

See ya next week


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Twilight universe.

Author Notes: No long drawn out speech here. I know you guys want to get on with it. But just to clarify a couple of things. Yes, this will have some drama and angst but no, it isn't like part one or two. I have a couple of new twists up my sleeve for everyone.

And I have been woefully bad at responding to reviews. The website has made it much more difficult to reply but I wanted to send a big wet sloppy kiss to everyone that has taken the time to review. I adore reading what you have to say and love to see what you guys are predicting. Please don't take the lack of a reply to mean I don't care. Its truly not that…just that I have really crappy internet service at home and it kicks me out of things an awful lot.

Chapter 4-Sweet Reunion

EPOV

The smile on my face grew wider and wider with every second that passed as I watched my wife stunned into perfect stillness. Her hands covered her open mouth, her eyes were wider than I'd ever seen them and unblinking and she hadn't taken a single breath since she'd rounded the corner.

"Bitch!" JP yelled, still facing the porch where the rest of my coconspirators stood, all laughing and grinning.

"JP?" she whispered so quietly I didn't think he'd be able to hear her. But once again, he surprised me. He whipped his head toward the oak tree, causing the ginormous bow on his head to slip sideways and cover his eye like some sort of demented pirate.

"AHHHH!" he screamed at top volume, which being JP was loud enough to scare the birds in the tree. "There's my girl!"

The chuckles that filled the air came from all around. Our family, the kids inside the bus as they watched their father act like a goof ball, Heidi as she stood at the bottom of the bus steps…everyone laughed as he made this half giggle, half growl kind of noise, bent his knees so that he was eye level with her, opened his arms and started running toward her. He made his way across the forty or so feet that separated them in record time; all the while she stood motionless as a statue, still in shock at his appearance. With every step he took, his bizarre noises got louder and louder, until he was laughing at the top of his lungs.

Her trance broke when he was ten feet away from her. In five steps she had closed the distance between them. It was extremely funny to watch them react at the same moment. He bent his knees a little more deeply just as she stretched her arms up and jumped toward him. The end result was that when he straightened his lanky six foot three body, her arms were wrapped around his neck and her legs were around his waist. They both were squealing like school kids as he rocked them both from side to side in wide exaggerated movements.

I felt the heat of Heidi's body closing the distance behind me and raised my right arm just as she moved in beside me. Settling her into a one armed hug, I noticed that her eyes were shining with tears and her smile was as large as my own. We loved these two more than anything else in the world and seeing them so happy made both of our hearts sing.

"They're kinda like little kids at Christmas, don't you think," she asked me without breaking her gaze. I couldn't tear my own eyes away from the sight of my wife's smile long enough to answer, so I just nodded my head in agreement.

Bella pulled back just enough to cup JP's face in her hands and he locked his wrist at the small of her back. She leaned in and kissed him on the mouth and then on the nose, earning another round of chuckles from their collective audience.

"You look so beautiful JP," she said sincerely as her hands swept over his face, tracing the lines around his eyes as they crinkled against his mile wide grin. Slowly she moved the tips of her fingers over his cheeks and lips, her eyes beaming brighter with excitement with every passing motion.

"Well, that's about the most fubared response I've ever heard," he said in his barking laugh as he leaned forward and kissed her again. "Hot as hell? Okay. Fucking awesome? Alrighty. But 'beautiful'? You fallen and hit your head recently?"

"Shut up, Asshole. I think you look beautiful."

"If its any consolation, I think you look beautiful too. Freaky as fuck with the pee colored eyes but still beautiful."

"Pee colored eyes? What the fuck?" she said with mock offense and then laughed as he shifted her effortlessly to his hip and turned toward where Heidi and I stood. As he started walking toward us, she just leaned her head down onto his chest. I couldn't help but laugh as they neared us. She looked like the most stunning toddler on the planet as she tucked her head under his chin.

"Honey, want to adopt another kid?" JP shouted to Heidi as they closed the distance toward us.

"No thanks already got enough and why are you yelling? We're standing right in front of you."

"Heidi! Oh my God, it's so good to see you," Bella squealed again as she leaned forward and hugged Heidi tightly, body still clinging to JP's hip.

"Oh, sweetheart, it's so good to see you too. I can't remember ever seeing you look better."

"What are you guys doing here?" my wife asked them both, her eyes jerking back and forth between the two of them. Then she turned those gorgeous eyes toward me and cocked her head to the right. "Did you do this?"

I reached toward JP and grabbed her under the armpits. JP shifted her so that she easily slid into my arms. She released her legs from around his waist and wrapped them around my own hips, her feet never hitting the ground. The look in her eyes, the pure happiness, made my heart melt. My wife was always painfully beautiful but seeing her so excited and so clearly ecstatic nearly brought me to my knees.

"I can't take all the credit, baby," my eyes sliding toward the bus where the originator of this little excursion resided. "But the timing was my idea and I've been making the arrangements for a while now. Do you like your birthday present?" I asked quietly as I leaned my forehead against hers.

"Oh, Edward. This is most amazing birthday I've ever had. Especially since I had no idea it actually was my birthday," she said sheepishly. I leaned forward and kissed her softly and then hugged her to my chest. She returned the hug with enough force to momentarily push the air from my chest. "So who else gets the credit for this?"

I laughed under my breath as she turned her head toward the porch and our family. Every single one of them had their hands raised, letting her know that they had all, in one way or another, had something to do with arranging this for her. Jasper winked as the last twenty four hours fell into place for her. And being the gentile ladylike creature she was, she flipped him off while mouthing "thank you". It only took a fraction of a second for the acknowledgements to come from across the lawn. It was plenty of time to let that little secret out of the bag before the next one opened his mouth.

"I guess you could say that I got this little party started."

Her long brown hair nearly took my eye out as she whipped her head around toward the voice with the speed of lightening. I knew, without ever looking at her, that this would send her back into a state of immobile shock and I couldn't fucking wait.

"Oh my God," she whispered as moisture gathered in her eyes, her hand once again back at her open mouth. I followed her laser point gaze to the open door of the bus. Standing on the ground just below the step, one hand still gripping the metal railing was the person that had made this whole thing possible. And the one person that would make this perfect for her. "Chip."

"Baby girl," he sighed, the tears in his own eyes flowing freely. He opened his arms wide to her amazed gaze. Standing behind him, still mostly inside the bus was Marcus with a four year old Jared perched on his hip very much the way that JP had been holding Bella just minutes before.

She slid down out of my grip without every taking her eyes off the man that was father, friend, confidant and healer to her. Her shoulders rounded and she grasped her hands in front of her stomach as she walked slowly toward him, conscious of keeping up human appearances. When she finally reached him, she melted into his embrace. The ragged expulsion of her breath was the tell tale sign that my wife was sobbing with joy. In that moment, her face was that of the eighteen year old girl that had first met Chip in that Seattle bookstore.

"I've missed you so much," she said in a small voice as she hugged him as tightly as possible.

"I know baby girl, I know," he soothed her. His hand stroked her back and hair in a calming gesture as he rocked her gently.

"Edward, my man, you did a good thing here," JP said with real emotion in his voice as he watched them embrace. "He misses her more than he wants anyone to know. He loves us all, he nearly fucking worships the kids. But there is something about that one that has his heart tied directly to her."

"How long do I get to keep you?" my wife asked with more amusement in her voice as she looked up at Chip.

"A while," he said as he kissed her forehead. "At least a few weeks."

"Really!" she said very loudly, her body bouncing on her toes. "Weeks, not days?"

"Really. Now say hello to everyone else before you piss off your guests."

She smiled hugely and hugged him to her again. She pulled back with the most adorable look on her face, her nose scrunched up and her eyes narrowed.

"You smell funny."

"Oh kiss my big fat Gucci clad ass," he replied sarcastically.

"Your ass isn't big nor is it fat. In fact," she said as she looked over his shoulder at his backside, "you're skinnier than the last time I saw you."

"Psh, baby girl. I am no such thing. I just had a perfectly tailored tuxedo on the last time you saw me."

I couldn't help but laugh as I watched them. Chip and Bella would never change in their interactions with each other. And I was sincerely glad for that. They were the perfect mix of sarcasm and unadulterated love. I laughed a little harder when I realized that Buddy had quietly crept across the grass and taken up residence at Chip's feet. As a matter of fact, his ass was planted on the toe of Chip's designer shoe.

"Ah, lovie," Marcus said as he stepped the off the bus and pushed past them with a now extremely squirmy four year old worming his way to the ground. As he passed Bella, he kissed the top of her head. "It good to see you. Life is always more interesting with you around."

As soon as Jared, the squirmy toddler in question, hit the ground, he ran like a bolt of lightening toward where I stood with his parents. His thoughts were a whirring jumble of images and "shouted" words that matched the wild eyed expression on his face.

"Mommy! Mommy! We're at's Disney World!"

"What? Baby, what makes you say that?" Heidi said in a very soothing voice. That had little to no effect on the little boy in front of me.

"We is, Mommy, we is at Disney World! Look!" he screamed as he pointed toward the porch that contained only my family. And not a large rodent in a bow tie.

I cut my eyes toward my family to see them all grinning like morons. Every single one of them was revealing in the fact that this little boy was so excited about them; however mistaken he was about our location. I noticed Esme and Rose in particular had soft expressions on their faces and an extra spark of love in their eyes.

"Rat, this isn't Mouse Land," JP said as he squatted down so that he was eye level with his son. "This is the house of the friends that Mommy and Daddy told you about in the bus, remember?"

"No, Daddy! It's Disney World," Jared insisted as he stomped his foot and pointed toward my family with as much force as his four year old body would give him. "See, it's the Princesses. Right there!" he yelled again, only this time he looked right at Alice. "Its Snow White and Cinderella standing on the porch," he finished with a huge jump in to the air accompanied by a fist pump. Then he turned at rocketed toward the porch and toward the "Princesses".

"God, help us. The little man just wrapped every female in this family around his pinky," Emmett said with a guffaw that echoed off the mountains that surrounded our home. Jasper and Carlisle both cackled their agreement as they watched Alice, who forever more would be referred to as Snow White, drop to her knees and open her arms wide to the little boy that was apparently going to tackle his favorite character.

"Oh, little man, if you aren't the sweetest thing I've ever seen," Alice cooed as she wrapped her arms around Jared in a monster hug. He buried his face in her collarbones and smiled like he'd just won the lottery.

The painfully sweet scene that I was thoroughly enjoying watching was forcefully interrupted by the thoughts that invaded my mind. I looked back toward the bus to see none other than Paul walking slowly down the stairs. His hair was pulled back in a pony tail at the base of his neck but otherwise he was the spitting image of the JP I'd met in Atlanta. I sighed as I realized that the likeness extended all the way to the dirty thoughts that danced around in his head as he descended the steps with his eyes fixed on my wife's ass.

"Uncle Eddie," he whined loudly as he stood on the bottom rail, just five feet or so away from where Bella and Chip were still hugging each other and watching the toddler reduce my sisters and mother to blabbering cooing squealing messes. He stretched both hands out in front of him like he was grabbing at something. It didn't take a mind reader or rocket scientist to know exactly what he was imaging grabbing considering his gaze was still fixed like a laser to her backside. "I'm begging you! Just let Auntie B make a man out of me. Just one time, please."

Even I couldn't help but snort and then laugh at his antics. But my reaction was far less funny than his parents. JP clapped loudly and then nearly became hysterical laughing so hard, spurned on I suspected by a nearly out of control Jasper. But Heidi hid her face in her hands and was thinking of ways to kill her teenaged replica.

"Sorry, dude. No can do," I called back to him as Bella turned around slowly to face him. Her eyebrow was cocked but she was also smiling. She could no more resist Jared than she could resist JP.

"Not gonna make a man out of you but how about a hug, Paul?" she said sweetly as she opened her arms to him. He stepped quickly into her embrace, laying his cheek on her chest much like his younger brother had done with Alice. Only his actions were much funnier to watch considering that he was already significantly taller than her.

"You really are a carbon copy of your dad, aren't you?" she said with a laugh as he looped his arms around her tightly.

"Yeah, Mama says I got all the crap behavior DNA from him and all the good stuff from her," Paul said with an evil glint in his eyes.

"P-man, you behave yourself," Chip said as he lightly swatted the back of his head. By my count that was the third swat he'd earned in the hour that I'd been near him. "Don't you dare embarrass us in front of the Cullens." While the words were stern, there was a tenor of adulation in his thoughts as he looked at his oldest grandson. It was complete devotion to all the kids of EverClear that was the most audible thought in Chip's mind. It swirled through everything he was thinking.

"I know, I know. Behave or they'll think we're a bunch of heathens."

"I've known your father for a very long time. I know you're a heathen," Bella said with complete joy in her voice as she released a very reluctant teenaged horn dog from her arms.

"Please don't lump me in with him Auntie Bella," Isa said very primly as she finally emerged from the bus's interior, a large hard back book tucked under her arm.

"Oh lovie, never," my wife beamed as she hugged her namesake.

Isa was a truly amazing little girl. She was stunning beautifully but her dark eyes intimated at an old soul living inside. Her personality was very much like her mother and somehow completely unique at the same time.

It was surreal to see how close Bella was to the kids that she had only met in person a handful of times over the last few years. All of the interactions had been short, only an hour or two at the most, but they had all had lasting effects. Where I was known to them as not much more than the guy on the present tags, Bella was truly their aunt. The all saw her as a part of their family.

"Bitch! I'm getting' jealous over here. Come hug me again woman," JP shouted as he nearly levitated with excitement over seeing his children and his best friend so contentedly comfortable with each other.

"Dad! Language," Isa said with a perfectly cocked eyebrow.

"Sorry puddin'."

She groaned at the term of endearment but smiled widely none the less. She was, evidently, very much a daddy's girl.

It took nearly forty five minutes for everyone to make the rounds hugging each other. Grandpa C and Nana E, as my parents were known, looked nearly as full of pride as Chip and Marcus did when they watched the three kids. My sisters were still fawning over Jared while good naturedly side stepping Paul's borderline suggestive comments. My brothers were overjoyed at having JP back in the mix. There were hugs and kisses, compliments and squeals. Everyone was nearly bursting with happiness. Overall, it couldn't have been a more perfect afternoon.

The sun was starting its descent when we all started making our way into the main house. The plan was a large dinner for our guests followed by getting everyone settled in the guest cottages so that Bella and JP could spend some time together catching up. I was walking with Isa up the steps of the porch when Chip fell into synch with me.

My foot froze mid-step as I caught a good whiff of his scent.

Suddenly, Bella's comment from earlier in the day made sense.

"_**You smell funny."**_

It wasn't a funny smell at all. And it also made sense why she couldn't place what was off with his normally woodsy citrus scent.

"_Not a word, Edward. We'll talk later,"_ Chip thought as he passed me, shooting me a very stern look. I also noticed that when he walked past Carlisle as he held the door open to the main room, he stiffened. My father's eyes followed Chip inside, the same look of concern on his face that I was sure clouded my own.

"He said we'd talk later," I whispered to my father much too quietly for anyone else to hear. His only reply was a curt nod.

The smell was subtle but distinct. Deceptively benign in origin but menacing in its implication.

At least to anyone that had a medical degree.

Chip was a sick man.

Chapter Notes: The gang's all here. Let me know what you think and I'll see you next week. Same bat time, same bat channel.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Twilight universe.

Sorry for the delay guys, computer issues took a little time to sort out.

Also, I need to apologize for my giant screw up in the last chapter. I totally blame trying to edit while hopped up on Nyquil for the colossal confusion I created in regards to which kid is which. I went back and edited Chapter 4, so hopefully it's a little clearer now. But just to be sure….Paul is the oldest son at 13, Isa is 11 and Jared is the youngest at 4.

Playlist for this chapter….Yes, the music is going to start showing up now.

Heart-Shaped Box (written by Nirvana, performed by Amy Lee) You can find it on YouTube. Just type in "Heart Shaped Box Amy Lee" and you'll get several options to choose from. This is a gorgeous cover of the song.

Last thing…I got fussed at last chapter (lol) for not warning you that you may need a hankie. So, here's fair warning.

Chapter 5-Heart Shaped Box

BPOV

The entire afternoon and evening had been simply magical. As much as I knew how much I missed my human family, even I was surprised at how complete I felt sitting at the dining room table with Chip on my right and JP on my left. I'd not even been aware of feeling like something was missing until they had appeared, complete with the chaos and noise of three kids as accompaniment. And holy shit, what amazing kids they were. Each one was so distinctive and unique but at the same time they all had traits or habits that were quintessentially their parents.

Paul was, in essence, JP made over. From the long fingers to the wicked eyes to the dry acidic sense of humor; he was nearly identical to his father. He had the same long loping stride, the hyena's laugh…hell; even the way he ate brought a sense of déjà vu to the entire dinner experience. The similarities were even more astounding to observe as he sat beside his dad, both of them hunched over their food as if someone was going to take it away from them and both of them holding their forks gripped in their fists. Every time I, or Edward for that matter, looked in their direction, I couldn't help but giggle under my breath. And from the smirk on Chip's face, he knew exactly what I was seeing.

Isa, on the other hand, was Heidi up one side and down the other. The same grace that I had noticed the very first night I'd met her so long ago was present in her every move. She was more poised than any human I'd eve been around, young or old alike. And it was a good thing given the insanity that she lived in. She told stories of the places she'd seen as she traveled around the world with the band that completely captivated my brothers. They hung on her every word as she described the Great Wall of China and the Egyptian pyramids. She was the explorer of the EverClear traveling circus. According to Marcus, every place they ever went on tour, she was determined to find and experience the most interesting thing she could find. She wrote extensively, and by all descriptions very expressively, in a journal every day of her life. She detailed everything she could about the places and people and cultures that she saw. By the time dinner was over, not only were my brothers captivated by the twelve year old little girl. So was my husband. Just a look at him as he talked to her told me that there was now another female in our mist that he would do anything in the world to see smile. I hadn't known it was possible to love my Edward any more than I did, until I watched him with the extraordinary girl at his side.

Jared was, in a word, hysterical. I had never spent much time around little kids either as a human or as an immortal. But I had the feeling that nothing in the world would have prepared me for the live wire that Alice had sitting in her lap. He talked a mile a minute and moved nearly constantly. And he was all over the place. He jumped from talking about Princesses to reptiles to the shapes he saw in the clouds all within the span of a single bite of ravioli. He was beyond adorable with JP's eyes and Heidi's delicate bone structure. I nearly fell off my chair when Edward whispered to me that he was getting a headache from the speed at which the thoughts few into and out of Jared's mind. Even with the unlimited stamina that immortality afforded us, I was doubtful that anyone in my family was going to be capable of keeping up with him.

All through the meal, Chip would reach over and pat my leg or hug me to his side. He seemed as determined to soak up as much contact as possible and I was in complete agreement. Just having him here, chastising me about the way I was dressed, brought deep rooted emotions to the surface. I couldn't stop smiling. And I didn't want to even try. Especially after getting the news that not only would Dimitri and his wife Chelsea be joining us in two days but Jane and Felix along with all five of their sons would be arriving as well. It was the only thing that anyone could have said or done that would have made my day any more perfect.

After nearly two and a half hours, during which JP's family along with Chip and Marcus consumed enough Italian dishes to supply a small country for a day, they finally seemed to have had their fill. Everyone praised Edward and Esme for the incredible spread, Paul in particular saying loudly that Edward and Nana C were his new favorite people as long as they kept making canolis for him. By the time we cleared the table, it was well after sundown and Heidi was insistent that it was time to start getting the kids settled in for the night. Even as excited as they were, she said the schedule they kept on the road needed to be maintained if they had any chance of keeping them from whining and fighting from sheer exhaustion.

The largest of the guest cottages behind the main house had been outfitted for this visit by my mother. And true to Esme form, it was nothing short of perfection. There were four bedrooms, each one more beautiful than the last, a large family room and a completely stocked kitchen with a small breakfast nook. It was large enough for them to spread out and not get on each other's nerves but still cozy enough for them to enjoy being with each other. And they all truly seemed to love being together as much as our own family did.

Chip and Marcus would be staying in one of the suites in the main house that Esme had decorated especially for them. She told them, as Jasper and Emmett carried an army of bags to their rooms, that it would be theirs permanently. The response to which was a torrent of tears and hugs from both men.

It took nearly fifteen minutes for everyone to say their good nights and hug each other. Alice was talked into coming to the cottage to read not one but two bedtime stories by Jared. It was clear that for the duration of the stay, she would be powerless to say "no" to him. Not that anyone would want to in the first place. This was as much a treat for them as it was for me. They were free of the hectic schedules and whirlwind traveling that made up the majority of their lives and they all seemed intent to make the most of it.

It was with a final hug and an "I love you" to each of his kids that JP turned to me, grabbed my hand and announced that he was kidnapping me for a while.

"Show me this fucktastic studio, Bitch," he said with a smile as he jumped onto my back piggy-back style. "Giddy up!"

EPOV

No one that witnessed Bella take off in a sprint with JP on her back could help but laugh hysterically. It was an utterly ridiculous sight but it was completely them. That one image seemed to sum up the whole of their relationship as they disappeared into the trees that would lead them to the very back cottage and the studio.

"Have you ever seen anything so idiotic?" Chip said with an indulgent smile as they disappeared.

"Actually," I started but didn't need to finish for Chip. He knew as well as I did that the two of them together were generally idiotic in the most amazing way possible.

"So I guess you want some answers," he said as he faced me, his smiling eyes from moments ago replaced with a grim seriousness.

"Yeah, if you don't mind. Do you care if I ask Carlisle to join us?" 

"I would prefer that actually. He's part of what I want to talk to you about."

"Okay," I said with a deep breath. "I'll go get him and we'll meet you in the family room in five minutes. Alice will be busy here for a while," I said gesturing to the cottage behind us, "and the others are going out for a bit, so the house will be empty."

"Sounds good. Let me finish up here and Marcus and I will meet you there."

I didn't have to look far to find Carlisle. He was seated in the family room, staring into the blazing fire. He looked like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders as he watched the flames dance around in the open grate.

"Chip and Marcus will be here in just a minute," I told him as I took the empty seat beside him.

"That's good. I wanted to talk to them both," he said with a deep sigh. Even if I hadn't been able to hear his thoughts, I would have known that what he had picked up on was very serious.

"Do you think…"

"I don't know Edward. I need to know the specifics before I can answer that question. What I do know is that if he hasn't started treatment, he needs to do so immediately. Although, I suspect that he's already begun."

"Gentleman," Marcus said quietly from the open door at the back of the room. The glass French doors reflected the light from the flames on the two men as they stood together, their hands clasped tightly.

"Chip. Marcus. Have a seat," my father said in what I knew was his physician's voice. Where his tone usually brought a measure of comfort and assurance, on this night it only brought a shiver of fear to my spine.

It took much more time for them to settle themselves into the couch opposite from the two of us than I would have expected, even from humans. It was a crushing feeling to realize that it was nothing more than a stalling tactic on Chip's part. Whatever he was about to tell us, he was dreading actually giving voice to.

"So, I guess I learned my lesson about trying to get anything past a mind reader and a vampire doctor," Chip finally said as he shifted into the side of his partner, looking I suspected for more than just physical warmth. He looked at the two of us with a tight smile on his face and then closed his eyes, steeling himself.

"Anenocarcinoma," Carlisle said before he could open his eyes. The word made the hair on my neck stand up as it registered. Pancreatic cancer.

"Stage four at best," Chip confirmed with a nod. "How did you know what it was specifically?"

"I caught a whiff of the Gemcitabine when you passed by me. That particular chemical is generally only used in localized or metastic pancreatic cancer. So you've already started chemo then?"

"Yeah," he says with patented Chip sarcasm. "It's a great way to loose weight."

"That's not funny," I snapped before I could control my emotion. Chip looked at me and then tilted his head a little to the right, a very parental smile on his face.

"I know its not, Edward. I'm sorry."

"Fuck!" I nearly shouted as I stood up from my chair in front of the fireplace. "No, I'm sorry Chip; I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Son," my father said as he stretched his hand out to me. "Come sit down. We can't fix anything if we don't know what we're dealing with."

"Edward, this is why I wanted to talk to you and Carlisle first. I knew this was going to sting. But I think you know why I need you in the loop first."

"Chip, is this why you called me?" I asked as I sat back down restlessly.

"Well, yes and no. Let me start at the beginning." He turned to Carlisle. "About three months ago, right before the Hall of Fame ceremony, I began to get these weird pains in my abdomen and back. Started to loose weight. And then, I started looking kind of yellowish. That's when Marcus and Heidi made me go to the doctor in Seattle."

"Wait! Heidi knows?" I interrupted.

"Yes, she and Marcus were with me when I got the news. And to answer your next question, no, JP doesn't know yet. I've only had a confirmed diagnosis for a little over three weeks."

"Okay, sorry," I said quietly, his intentions now crystal clear.

"I wasn't a good candidate for surgery according to two different oncologists."

"I can see that," Carlisle said, very clinically. It thoroughly pissed me off that he was able to control himself at the present. "A distal pancreatectomy is very risky in anything beyond a stage one or two diagnosis."

"So let me cut to the chase with you both. Carlisle part of the reason I wanted to come here is exactly what we are talking about now. I'd like you to treat me. Before you say anything," he said holding his hand up as Carlisle opened his mouth, "I understand that you aren't an oncologist. But I also know, and you just proved it to me, that you understand the human body in ways that no other physician possibly could. And I trust you to be completely open and honest with me about what's going on. I know this is asking a huge amount of you but I would consider it a real gift if you would help me through this."

"Of course I will," my father said without a second of hesitation. "I'll need to spend a couple of days researching and making arrangements. But you have my word that I will do everything in my power to help you fight this. We can do the chemo here in the house once I get the right equipment in place."

"Oh God, thank you, Carlisle. Truly. This means the world to me," Chip said with tears in his eyes. Marcus just hugged him closer to his body until the tears subsided. "This brings me to you, Edward. JP and Bella are going to have a horrible time with this. That's why I wanted them together. They are going to need you and Heidi more than ever. But they are going to need each other as well. I'm not asking you to lie to her. If she asks you a direct question, we'll answer it. But I was planning on telling all of them when the rest of the band arrived. I think it will be easier to get this out once to the adults and then one more time to the kids after the parents all have had a chance to process it."

Oh, holy fuck. The kids. All the kids. This was going to decimate them. Chip was the only grandparent that any of them really had. They had all been "his" since the moment they were born.

But even the fears and concerns I had for the children didn't come close to what I was worrying about with my wife. Decimate didn't come close. And Chip was right, JP would fare no better when this news was delivered. There were going to need each other now more than ever. It was both brilliant and cruel that the first time in years that they had a long expanse of time together was made possible by this particular reasoning.

"You two know that you are welcome to stay here as long as needed," Carlisle said as he hugged Chip. I hadn't even realized he'd crossed the room, as wrapped up in my terror for Bella as I was. "That goes for everyone. Any of them that want to stay are welcome to."

"Thank you," Marcus said as he wiped his eyes. "If this situation holds true to form, I would imagine you guys are gonna get them all for the duration," he finished with a chuckle.

Chip released my father and came to stand in front of me. His eyes held very little in the way of true fear and I was once again forcefully reminded of just how strong this quirky man actually was. I stood and hugged him, not knowing how to express what I was feeling.

"Oh, Edward," he whispered as he rubbed my back. "You've taken care of my Baby Girl for so long; I know you'll get her through this as well. I couldn't have asked for anyone better to trust her with." He released me enough to look me in the eyes. "You are a good man and a phenomenal husband to her. Bella isn't the easiest little thing in the world to manage but I'm forever thankful that you are the one I've entrusted her with. All I ever wanted was for her to be happy and loved. And you do both of those and more."

I hadn't felt the desire to cry in such a long time that the emotions were overwhelming. I wanted to tell him how much his words meant to me. Wanted to tell him how much he meant to me. To us. But the words wouldn't come. So I settled for the best that I could.

"Chip, I love you. Every bit as much as my parents."

"Ah, sweet boy, what am I gonna do with you?" he laughed as he released his hold on me. "Don't you know you can't say something like that to an old man? Pretty boy, I love you too. I always have, once I was sure you weren't going to hurt my girl. She's gonna have a hard time with this but I trust you with her heart."

The emotions were nearly too much to comprehend. Carlisle and Chip left the room to go find Esme and fill her in on the cataclysmic shift in the visit and to make start making arrangements for the medical equipment that would be necessary. After a few more minutes staring into the fire, I made my way outside and began to wander down the path toward the studio. I was fighting with everything I had to school my emotions enough to face Bella and JP without giving away Chip's condition. It was his to tell and I would make sure I didn't deny him that request. But I was grappling with handling the swirl of feelings that was storming through my mind. As I neared the last cottage before the studio, I realized why I was reeling. It had been decades since I had truly mourned the death of a human. With one very glaring exception. The pain that was lancing my every thought was forcefully reminding me of that horrendous twenty four hour period when I had thought that my Bella was dead. The realization made my breath catch in my throat and I had to pause to control myself.

The clear sky above and the shadows of the trees that lined the path seemed surreal as I very slowly walked back to the little house I'd spent so much time in. I was only about half way there when the voices of my wife and her best friend were carried on the wind toward me. They both sounded so happy and light, that I couldn't help but smile just a little. Her voice was always calming to me but even as I registered the change in my tight muscles, I was saddened by the knowledge that in just a few days, that same voice would cry out in pain.

As I slowly wandered down the gravel toward the front door, I heard the light strumming of a guitar. The smell of the wood burning in the fire pit told me that they were outside on the patio, probably sprawled out on the cushions. I wasn't as focused on the exact words of their conversation as much as the general air of happiness that surrounded them. As quietly as possible, I made my way around to the back of the structure. I found a large tree that would virtually hide me from the two people whose bubble of calm I didn't want to intrude upon.

"Whatever has you so fucked up, she's gonna see it if you get any closer," Jasper said from ten feet to my right. I hadn't even registered his presence until he spoke.

"I know," I said, my eyes never leaving her smiling face as she laughed at something JP had said. "What are you doing out here?" I asked, finally looking at my brother.

"Soaking up the good vibes," he said with a smile in their direction. "I never could resist the two of them together."

I chuckled quietly. That was probably the most honest answer that he could have given me. He was drawn to Bella under any circumstance but in the presence of her best friend? Well, he couldn't resist.

"You okay?" he said seriously.

There was no way to lie to Jasper and tell him "yes" but I still wasn't going to talk to him about what was truly going on. So I settled for as truthful an answer as I could give him.

"Not really, but I will be."

"Can I help you?" he offered and I felt the smallest wave of calm ebb over me.

"Not this time, Jasper. But thank you."

"Sing for me, Bitch," JP said with a bark, thankfully interrupting the direction of the conversation with my brother. His fingers had found a steadier rhythm on the strings. "And I'm still gonna make you play them tapes for me one day very soon."

"Tapes?" she said coyly.

"Oh don't be thick. Piss colored eyes and a fucked up skin condition do not make me afraid of you," he teased, earning a very unladylike snort from the gorgeous creature across the flames from him as well as a quieter one from my brother beside me. "The tapes of you and Eddie singing that Daddy C told me about. You know? When you were a bratty baby vamp. I wanna hear 'em. And I'm gonna on this trip."

"Bratty baby vamp? What the hell, JP?"

"Well, that what Em told me. He said you were full of piss and vinegar when you first…um, how do you say it? Woke up?"

I couldn't help but laugh as I watched Bella clutch her stomach as she giggled at Emmett's description of her as a new born.

"I had a temper, that's all. And I don't know why that shocked anyone. I always had a temper. Besides, if Emmett, and my husband for that matter, hadn't thought it was hysterical to screw with me while I fed, I wouldn't have been half as bad."

"Now that I would pay big bucks to see," JP cackled. "You whipping Eddie's ass and not in a freaky sex game kinda way would be worth my kids college fund. Well, come to think of it…" 

"Don't finish that statement if you value your testicles."

"Okay, okay…so, you gonna sing for me or what?"

"You gonna play something worth singing and quit making my skin crawl with that thing?"

"Bitch!"

"Asshole!"

My brother and I both covered our mouths with our hands to keep the laughter at their antics from intruding on them.

"Fine, fine. How about this one?" he said as he strummed the chords of a song I instantly recognized but couldn't picture Bella singing.

But I should have known better. The second she opened her mouth, the beautiful tone of her voice sounded as if she had written the song herself.

**She eyed me like a Pisces when I am weak**

**I've been locked inside your heart-shaped box for a week**

**I was drawn into your magnet tar pit trap**

**I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black**

I shivered as the lyrics resounded through the quiet sky. Beside me, Jasper sighed contentedly as he listened to his favorite sister sing into the night air.

**Hey**

**Wait**

**I've got a new complaint**

**Forever in debt to your priceless advice**

**Hey **

**Wait**

**I've got a new complaint**

**Forever in debt to your priceless advice**

We stood silently listening as they continued the song, JP adding small harmonies at just the perfect places. It was truly magical to hear them together again. There was an air of perfection that hung around the ebony darkness of the night that encased us all. As they brought the song to a close, her voice climbed higher and higher into that magnificent upper register that she possessed. Her change had only enhanced the beauty and power of her voice. It still rang with deep emotion when she sang, even if it wasn't one of her songs.

"Whatever is going on with you, you're going to have to tell her. But don't do it tonight. Give her tonight." Jasper whispered as he turned to make his way back to the main house.

"I know. And I had no intention of taking tonight away from her."

"We'll catch up with you guys tomorrow. Go. Soak up some vibes of your own brother dear. You seem to need it." He patted my shoulder lightly and then turned without another word.

The truth of his words sunk in as I watched Bella and JP hug once he had brought the song to an end. I needed her to figure out how to help her through what was coming. I needed her calming influence, just as she would need me in the days to come.

With a deep breath, I stepped out of my hiding place and began to walk toward them.

"Can I crash this party?"

Chapter Notes: I'm almost afraid to say it but let me hear your thoughts and predictions. Also, go ahead and charge up the ipods or computers. One more chapter and then we'll start with the playlists again. And I'm thinking after this one, you guys could use a little pick me up. Anyone else smelling any citrusy scents?


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Twilight universe but you guys already knew that.

A/N: Hi babes! Sorry this one is a little late…Edward wouldn't cooperate…hehe.

A quick word…some of you are worried that this is going to be a depressing fic. I'm asking you to trust me. Yes, Chip's condition is a part of the story and it will weave itself in and out of the plot. But…it's not the only thing or the main focus of the bulk of the story. As always with these characters…the band and the music will be the focus. And really, with JP moving in…you guys don't really think it will always be serious and sad, do you?

I figured you guys could use a little lighter content after the last 2 chapters…and really, I like any excuse to write…well, just read!

See you at the bottom.

Chapter 6-Light My Fire

BPOV

"Can I crash this party?" Edward asked as he finally stepped out from behind the tree he'd been hiding behind.

Silly man. Of course I'd known he was standing a hundred yards away. Had he not realized that he was the center of my universe and that I would always be as aware of his presence as he was of mine? He obviously either hadn't decided to make his presence known or he'd wanted to watch the two of us for a while before he joined us…either way, I'd decided after the first thirty seconds his scent mixed into the air with the burning wood to let him join us at his own pace. He'd been…off during dinner and I suspected he needed a little time to adjust to all the new minds and bodies that now swarmed the house and grounds.

"Why sure," JP answered him as he looked over his shoulder. "We're finished fucking now," he said with an evil laugh.

"Ha ha. Very funny," my husband said as he stepped fully into the fire light. God, he was truly beautiful. After all this time, he still took my breath away with his smile, which was wide as he walked toward me. In a practiced move, he slid in behind where I was perched on the couch outside on the patio with his legs on either side of me. Almost immediately, he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me flush against his chest. I noticed as soon as he settled behind me that his muscles were very tense, further proof to me that something was weighing heavily on his mind. "You sounded amazing," he whispered into my neck as he kissed his favorite spot behind my ear.

"Thanks," I said as I reached around and threaded my fingers into his hair. I scratched lightly, hoping that I could help relax him. "I haven't sung that in a long time."

"Damn skippy! That 's our song," JP said with a grin.

That was actually true. The very first "cover" that we'd ever sung together was "Heart-Shaped Box." Living in Seattle, Nirvana was the standard for all successful bands, so it was unavoidable that their music played nearly constantly. The song was both of our favorite by Nirvana and once we began performing, we had used the song to warm up.

"My Bitch still has the pipes," he said with pride in his voice.

"That she does," Edward agreed with a little hug. "Her voice is my favorite sound in the world."

"Well, its probably number three on my list. Right behind my kids makin' any noise in the world and my Heidi screamin'…"

"I think we get the picture," I nearly yelled to interrupt him as Edward shook with laughter behind me. He had obviously heard the conclusion to that statement.

"So, are you guys working on a new album?" Edward said with a smirk, very blatantly changing the subject.

"Well, I've got a lot of random things floating around my brain but I can't seem to make anything come together," JP said with real frustration in his tone of voice. He scratched the back of his neck in a painfully familiar gesture that I'd seen probably a thousand times over the years with him.

"Now that I can understand," I said as I looked up into the clear night. "I have so many ideas that just won't come out right. It used to be so easy to write. I'd hear it and then it would just flow. But lately…"

"Do you know what our best selling album ever was?" JP asked with a very amused look on his face.

"No. I don't. I know what tour was the most successful but not the best album. What's your point?"

"What tour? I'm not sure I even know the answer to that," he said with a giggle.

"Back to Basics," Edward said without a moment's hesitation, a huge grin on his face as he replayed the same memory that I was. "We saw the show at Donnington Castle."

The tour and album had been simply phenomenal. The music was hard and driving with vocals that simply soared. It was, quite simply, JP and the crew at their very best. It was most assuredly what had cemented their place in the Music Hall of Fame.

"Do you know how fuckin' awesome it is that you can tell me what show you saw? That is just wicked. I wish like hell we'd known you were there."

"It was unbelievable," I chimed in. "The sheer size of that crowd blew me away. Babe?" I said as I twisted in Edward's arms to look at him. "Do you have your phone on you?"

"Yeah," he said with another wide smile, already knowing what I was looking for. He pulled the phone from his back pocket and immediately opened the application with our pictures. "Here are the pictures from the show," he said as he passed me the phone. JP moved from his cushion over to sit beside us and leaned in to look at the small screen.

"Jesus, you and Dimitri using these old as Methuselah phones," JP barked as he looked at the screen of Edward's admittedly ten year old cell phone.

He absolutely howled with delight as the pictures we had snapped at the massive concert flashed by. We had intentionally gone to the show in England due to the overcast day that Alice had forecasted for us. It had lasted for nearly five hours including the opening act and we had thoroughly enjoyed every second of it.

There were several of the band onstage, a couple of me and Edward separately, including one I'd snapped with his hands raised into fists above his head and yelling at the top of his lungs, and then may favorite…a picture of my husband and I side by side that an extremely loud woman in front of us had been nice enough to snap. We were both grinning like fools, me wearing a blond wig and Edward wearing an EverClear baseball hat from an earlier tour. Both of us behind dark sunglasses. We both had our fingers held up in the traditional "rock and roll" sign and both sticking our tongues out at the camera in our impression of being bad-asses. It was completely ridiculous but pretty much summed up the entire day we'd spent with two hundred thousand other EverClear fans.

"This is classic!" JP snorted. "Oh, hell, it looks like you guys had a whole helluva lot more fun than we did. If I remember right, Felix and I both had some mondo cold that made us snot our way through the whole show."

"Oh Lord, JP! That is just nasty. Feel free to keep details like that to yourself, Asshole," Edward said with a wince.

"Okay, so back to the original question and the point to this whole conversation. Our best selling album was without a doubt _Immortalis_. Hell! I think we still to this day deposit royalties for you into an account from that album."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know," I said quietly. _Immortalis_ had been a live tribute album. A tribute to me. Every single song on the album had been a recording of us playing live at different clubs over the span of four years. It had been a two disc album, one with the music and one with a video clip of the songs on the album. When it had been released, I was still deep in the adjustment to being reborn, so I hadn't realized for some time just how touching a gesture it was.

"Don't apologize, Bitch. How would you have known that? My point is that you and I both are at our best musically when we work together. I've known that since before you left the band. I couldn't be more proud of the music we've put out over the years. But I know, and so does the band, that had you been writing with us, it would have been better. Your melodies and lyric with my harmonies and riffs was always just…fucking perfection."

"JP," I said with a catch in my voice and my heart in my throat. This…this was exactly why I loved JP. Everything that came out of his mouth was unflinchingly honest and unfailingly touching. "I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything, B. I'm not flattering you or looking for a 'thank you'. That's the truth. It always has been," he finished with a wide yawn. "Okay, so maybe you can say good night. What time is it anyway?"

"It's a little after two in the morning," Edward answered with a quick glance at his watch.

"Fuck a monkey backwards, no wonder I'm tired," he said as he stood up and stretched his arms over his head. "Been a long ass day."

"Fuck a monkey backwards? What the hell does that even mean?" I asked, giggling and snorting.

"It means I'm fucking wasted tired, Bitch," he grinned. "Ya'll coming?"

"Not just yet," my husband replied. Only he was looking at me as he said it. "I want some time with the greatest gift of my life."

"Fuckin' hell, you two are still sickening. I was hoping that ya'll would be slightly less vomit inducing after being together so long."

"Oh, shut up Asshole," I said with a loud laugh.

"Seriously, though Eddie, it's good to see you guys so happy."

"I know what you mean," I said with a soft smile at my buddy. "I love to see you with your family. All I ever wanted was to see you happy and at peace."

"Fuck, Bitch," he said, a heated blush coloring his neck. And if I was honest, making my throat burn just a little. "Don't make me get sappy. I'm heading up to the house before we all start makin' out and singin' 'Kumbaya' or some shit. Night."

"Good night," Edward and I replied at the same time. We laughed as he lifted his hand high in the air and pointed his middle finger towards us in acknowledgement. We both stared at his retreating figure until he melted into the blackness of the night.

"Happy birthday?" Edward asked with his lips against the skin of my neck.

I turned in his arms until I was straddling his lap. Automatically, his hands dropped to my waist and he pulled me flush against him. I reached both hands up and cupped his cheeks, tilting his head until he was looking me in the eye.

"No, love, not happy. Mind-blowing birthday is more appropriate. Best birthday ever. I cannot even begin to tell you how much this means to me."

"You don't have to, baby. I knew how much you missed them. I wanted to give you the one thing that would make you smile that gorgeous smile for me," he said with a gentle smile of his own and his thumb lightly stroking my bottom lip.

"I love you, Edward," I whispered as I leaned forward as pressed my lips against his.

I felt his arms slide slowly around my lower back until he had me wrapped in his embrace. It was all the encouragement I needed to deepen the kiss. I slid my tongue into his mouth and whimpered as the heat wrapped around me. My hands slid into the silky tangles of his hair and I tugged just hard enough to elicit my favorite growled moan from him.

Our physical relationship was the one and only thing that had changed dramatically since my change. I had very clear memories of what our sex life had been like when I was human. I remembered every touch, every orgasm, even every noise of our time together and I adored those memories. But it became perfectly clear once I was no longer fragile just how much Edward has held back. I understood, now, that it was out of necessity. It would never have been possible for him to accurately describe just how different our vampirism bodies and strength was from my human form, so I couldn't hold his restraint against him. But once our bodies were on equal footing, I quickly understood that there were huge chunks of himself that he had kept locked away.

And it was those parts of my Edward that I had thoroughly enjoyed getting to know over the last two decades.

My very first act after I'd awoken from the not quite three days of burning that I would happily forget if given the chance had been to literally attack Edward. And not in a blood crazed newborn kind of way. No, before I spoke a single word or took a step out of the bed in Edward's room in Oregon that I had spent the bulk of those three God forsaken days in; I had grabbed him and pulled him onto the bed. And then proceeded to nearly devour him. For a little more than fifteen hours. When I had finally come to my senses slightly, not only was the bed in the room completely destroyed but so was every other piece of furniture as well as two walls.

He had hypothesized that his scent surrounding me…I found out later that he has laid beside me in that bed for each and every second that my body was undergoing its transformation and talked to me non-stop…had triggered my reaction.

I disagreed. I thought that my basest instinct, which everyone said would be the most dominant trait upon waking, was to love my husband. So it hadn't shocked me at all that the first thing I did was to show him that love.

But from that very first time where we were physically equals, what had been the most amazing thing for me was the warmth of his body. It was wonderfully true that I could now move his skin…bite, pinch and any other amusing touch I could think of, and that I could now move him when and where I wanted him…like restrain his hands above his head. But the heat of his touch against my skin or the warmth of his mouth against mine still shocked me nearly every time we touched.

In a word…it was pure fucking bliss.

And speaking of bliss…

"Mrs. Cullen, are you trying to seduce me?" he whispered in a deep voice against my temple as I kissed his jaw line, making my way toward his ear.

"No, Mr. Cullen. I'm not trying to seduce you. I'm succeeding in seducing you," I replied as I bit his earlobe gently.

"Indeed you are."

I slid my hands from around his neck and down his arms slowly. I was intent on not rushing anything about our time together. I ran my fingertips over the defined muscles of his forearms as his hands flexed against my waist in his attempt to restrain himself and let me take the lead.

I explored every millimeter of the soft skin of his neck, chin and jaw with my lips and tongue as I stroked his arms and stomach. Every so often, he would let out a contented sigh or a moan. Even a couple of growls when I nipped at the skin. When I felt him shudder underneath me, I knew that he was relaxed enough to let me take the next step.

As my lips met his again, my hands slid to the small buckle of his belt. As I worked the pungent leather free from the metal, I felt the muscles of his abdomen tighten deliciously. The button of his jeans and then the zipper followed shortly thereafter, leaving me the space to slide my hands into the fabric and around his already impressively hard cock.

"Baby…God, that feels so good," he said as he gripped the hair at the base of my neck tightly and tugged my head back until I was looking straight up at the pitch black, star filled sky. "Fucking addictive hands. But you do know that if anyone is outside the house, they'll hear us."

"Couldn't care less," I said as I turned my head, trying to encourage him to find that spot behind my ear that made both of us growl in want. "Nosy fuckers shouldn't be back here if they don't want to hear."

He chuckled darkly as he did indeed fill my request and began to suck and bite at the skin just behind my ear. The hard he worked my skin, the harder my hands stroked his erection.

"That's my dirty little girl," he said as he bit down hard, making me moan extremely loudly into the night air. "Quit teasing me," he finished with a growl as I gripped him forcefully.

I pulled away from him just enough to make room between our bodies to start to work on the button to my own jeans. The flames from the fire pit behind us glowed against the amber color of his eyes, making them look like they were literally on fire. The effect was instant and obvious as his nostrils flared at the wave of arousal my body let go of.

"Get them off or I'll get them off for you," he demanded just before his mouth crashed against mine again, all traces of teasing and testing gone. He had given in to the raw lust that always made its way into our touches. With a new desperation, he kissed me harder and harder; until he finally decided that I wasn't moving fast enough for him.

With lightening speed, he flipped us so that I was on my back and a ripping noise tore through the air as the denim of my pants was torn away with a single yank of his hand.

"I warned you, baby, to quit teasing me," he growled as he grabbed both wrists and pushed them down into the cushion of the couch above my head. His body covered mine and his now throbbing cock was pressed against my soaking core. I lifted my hips and shamelessly ground myself against him seeking the friction that we both were nearly desperate for.

"Edward…please," I begged as I felt him pulse against me, a tiny hint of his scent overwhelming me momentarily. My husband was so turned on, that he was now leaking against me.

"Please what, Bella. Say the words," he said in a low dangerous voice as he transferred my hands into his very large left hand. With his now freed right hand, he lifted my leg up and hooked it over his hip, pushing against my clit with every move. "You can't have it until you say it."

"Please, baby…please fuck me."

"Again."

"Edward, please. Baby, please fuck me. I need your cock," I nearly whined I was so aroused.

It worked.

In one move, he slammed himself into me until our hips were flush and his pubic bone rubbed against my clit. His pace was relentless. Every stroke of his glorious cock was long and hard. And his mouth…God, his mouth was everywhere. Licking and sucking and biting every inch of me he could reach without releasing my hands.

"Yes! Oh, Edward…more," I yelled as he continued to pound into me. Every stroke pushed my higher and closer to coming.

Harder.

Faster.

Deeper.

More powerfully.

Every second took us both higher and higher. The calm night was filled with growls and moans and grunts. Whispered words from both of us, each one dirtier and dirtier. We each took everything the other had to give and gave everything we had of ourselves. Until just as the blackness of the night gave way to the creeping pink of dawn and we allowed ourselves to fall over the edge together.

As the light grew brighter and brighter, we lay together on the soft cotton cushions, arms and legs tangled together, kissing and softly stoking everything we could reach. Lips, shoulders…anything to show each other that as raw as our passion was, underneath was pure and infinite love.

As I caressed his scalp, he began to softly hum in contentment as he snuggled against my chest, his eyes closed.

"Better now?" I asked quietly.

"What do you mean?" he said, raising his head and looking at me with questioning eyes.

"Whatever has been bothering you tonight. Better now?"

"I love you," he said with a tight chuckle but a real smile on his face. "Somewhat better, yes."

"You want to tell me what it is?"

"Not just yet, baby. But I will, I promise," he said as he lay his head back against my chest, his face turned toward the now glowing embers of what had been the fire.

"When you're ready, I'm here."

"I know and I love you for it."

As the sun made its first appearance on the horizon, the soft laughter of a toddler echoed across the wind. With a kiss just above my heart, Edward lifted his head and looked at me with genuine happiness on face.

"Sounds like its going to breakfast time soon. Shall we?"

I laughed at the excited tone to his voice.

"Yeah, I suppose it's that time, isn't it? But I really hope we have clothes down here. I'm guessing Heidi wouldn't be thrilled to have us join them in the buff," I teased as I looked around at the shredded remnants of our clothing. Everything was in tatters with the exception of Edward's shirt, which had somehow landed in the fire when I had pulled it away from his chest.

"No, but Paul and JP would be more than happy," he teased back as he pushed his way up and sat back on his feet. He held his hand out to me and then pulled me against his chest, his hand gently cupping my cheek.

"Thank you," he said, his eyes sincere. "For not pushing."

"When you're ready, you'll tell me. I know that, Edward. I just wanted to make it better for you."

"You always do, my love, you always do."

"Mommy! I wants chicken and waffles for bweakfast," Jared's voice rang out loudly from their cottage, making Edward and me both howl with laughter.

"Chicken and waffles?" Edward questioned with an adorable wrinkle of his nose. "What the hell kind of breakfast is that?"

I just shook my head and giggled. In truth, I remembered seeing JP eat the same thing, grossing me out even as a human.

As the first sparkles of the sunlight appeared on his forearm, we made our way into the studio, hand in hand. I hoped that whatever was on his mind would work itself out and allow him to enjoy our time with our human family. But until it did, we had more than enough to distract ourselves with…in the form of seven humans that would make all the difference in the world.

Chapter Notes: A couple of things…1) Immortalis, although not an actual EverClear album, is a CD that I own. One of my readers (the same groupie that bought me at the auction and is responsible for the Jacob one shot) made me an amazing birthday present in the form of the exact album I described. It's all the songs I used in the first 2 installments of EC in live versions. And even more amazing, when I play it on the computer, it actually shows the artists as "EverClear" or "EverClear featuring Edward Cullen". It is unbelievable and I wanted to say a giant "Thank You!" to Shannon…mwah.

Also, Donnington Castle is a real venue for extremely large concerts. It is my dream concert to see Evanescence there…doubt it will happen but anyway…

Next up…the rest of the band arrives and things will really take off. Charge those Ipods…we're gonna have a playlist for the next chapter.

See ya very soon!


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of the Twilight universe but you guys already knew that.

Hi all! Let me start by apologizing for the delay. Long story short, my blind dog Bunker (you guys know him as Bella's pup Buddy) took a turn for the worst about two weeks ago. Most of the family free time has been spent attending to him. Unfortunately, he didn't recover and we had to put him to sleep. I was absolutely devastated and just simply couldn't focus on writing for a couple of days. I am very sorry to keep you guys waiting but I know you'll all understand.

Happy Black Friday to all the US groupies (hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving) and happy TGIF to everyone.

I think a couple of you guys have been waiting for this chapter. Can't wait to see what you guys think of it. See you at the bottom.

Playlist:

What You Want-Evanescence

Chapter 7- What You Want

EPOV

Four days later, I found myself smack dab…holy shit, I had already picked up JP's insane diction…I found myself sitting in the middle of the most bizarrely domesticated scene I could imagine. I was very casually seated at one of the eight chairs that surrounded a glass top table that sat outside the main house under a covered porch, reading a newspaper at seven forty-five am. To my right was Heidi, looking very sleepy but very content as she picked at a bowl of fresh fruit in front of her. To my left, was Dimitri's wife Chelsea, who was now visibly pregnant, complete with a bellybutton that had popped out the same day she arrived. Chip and Alice were immediately across from me, flipping through one of the seemingly thousands of photo albums that we lugged…jeez, I really needed to watch my speech…that we hauled with us to every single new home we had moved into. Jasper rounded out our table, looking more relaxed than I would have imagined possible and also thumbing through the newspaper.

Behind me and inside the open doors of the overly large family room inside the main house, my mother, Rosalie and Emmett were serving breakfast to the kids. All eight of them; who were, simultaneously laughing, shouting, eating, snorting and attacking each other. It was utter pandemonium in the great room behind me and every single person that was gathered to witness it was nauseatingly happy to be a part of the scene. Paul, in particular, seemed to take great pleasure in stirring up the younger kids and they seemed only too happy to rough-house before the sun had fully come up.

The air inside and out was filled with the smell of bacon and eggs, pancakes that my mother was cooking to order, some in the shape of animals and some in the shape of letters. The few that managed to make it off the griddle in their traditional round shape quickly found themselves flying through the air as doughy Frisbees. The pungent scent of oranges and apples in concentrated bursts, as well as coffee from the steaming cups of the adults that were sitting with me rounded out the cacophony of aromas that beckoned in the sunrise.

"Esme? You need any help?" Chip called as the fourth crash of the morning sounded, followed closely by a small giggle. If I was correct, that particular giggle came from Jane and Felix's middle son Alastair.

"No thanks, we're all good," a very amused shout came from the vicinity of the kitchen that until our guest's arrival had never been used.

Small chuckles came from around the table. I folded one side of the paper in my hand and looked at the smiling faces that surrounded me.

When the remaining members of EverClear had arrived two days ago, shortly before a virtual truckload of human food also arrived, the same touching reunion scene had played out once again. There were hugs and squeals as my wife's former band mates all took as much pleasure from seeing her again as she took from seeing them. There were introductions to all the children…and honestly, everywhere you looked, there was a little person… and tons of luggage that we all pitched in to move to the varying cottages that would play home to everyone for the duration of their stay.

"Is it always like this?" I asked no one in particular.

"Yes."

"Yep."

"Uh huh."

All three of the humans at our table answered in the affirmative and then howled with laughter.

"I don't think we even notice the noise when they are all together anymore. It's just a part of life when you travel with eight kids under the age of thirteen," Heidi said with a reassuring touch on my forearm. "As long as no one is bleeding or dying, we generally just tune them out. And let's face it, they are all quieter than their respective parents are," she finished with a snort.

"It took a long time to get used to," Chelsea chimed in, her skin glowing with the pregnancy hormones that raced through her body. I hadn't told her but I could actually hear very small amounts of the baby's thoughts when she was close to me. There was nothing distinct to hear, mainly emotions that were somehow verbalized. It was an extraordinary thing to be conscious of and I had taken great pleasure in "listening" to the baby over the last two days. "But once you realized how happy the kids are, it gets easier."

"I will say it's nice to have some help with them," Heidi conceded as she twisted in her chair and looked back into the room again.

I followed her gaze. Seated at opposite ends of the couch were the oldest two kids, Paul and Isa. They were largely ignoring the surrounding chaos by immersing themselves in an iPod sort of device for him and a large leather bound book for her. Every so often, Paul would reach out and smack Isa's leg or she would kick him with her foot without either of them every moving their gazed from their plates and entertainment. Aside from the grunts and "ow"s that followed, they hardly seemed to be aware of what they were doing. I chuckled at the memory of their dad and my wife doing the exact same thing to each other a very long time ago on a tour bus and wondered if the behavior was genetic or learned.

The large coffee table in front of the couch had five little ones seated around it, each of them eating huge amounts of food for their tiny bodies. And settled quite comfortably in the middle of them was Rosalie, a four year old on her lap and peanut butter smeared on her cheek in the shape of a miniature kiss. I had honestly, in all the years I had known her, never seen her look happier or more at peace.

I studied my sister a little harder as the toddler in her lap tried for the nineteenth time to feed her a bite of his breakfast. Instead of the cold and often harsh tone of voice that was most commonly present with Rose, her voice was gentle and loving as she told him he needed to eat the vile food himself so he could grow up to be big and strong. Emmett stood a few feet behind her, watching the exchange with a smile I didn't think I had ever seen him wear. He was in awe of his wife as she deftly handled the barrage of children that surrounded her.

I had always known that Rosalie wanted to have a child in her human life and that the loss of that possibility was what she struggled with the hardest in her immortal one. But I didn't think I, or anyone in our family for that matter, had ever truly understood just how deep rooted that longing was. It wasn't that she wanted a child because that's what was expected at that time of her life. It was that she truly and deeply loved to be around the kinder, more honest and open minds of kids. For all the bitterness that she harbored and often lashed out at her family with, I understood as I watched her eyes simply shine with adoration at the little boy in her lap, that it came from a place of pain and loss over the infant she would never carry.

"They really are beautiful," I said as I watched my mother bring yet another plate of some type of fried meat to the table. Where she had learned to cook all this shit was beyond me but it was a talent that was more than useful at the moment. As she placed slices of the nasty leathery-looking substance on the plates around the table, she had the same sparkle to her eyes as my sister. When she reached around Rose to serve her lap adornment, Esme kissed her eldest daughter on the forehead. This was something that the two of them shared and were both taking extreme joy in experiencing together.

"Do you mean the kids or your mother and sister," Carlisle said as he sat down quietly in the remaining chair at our table. I hadn't even realized he had joined us until he spoke.

"Both, I think," I said with a wide smile as I nodded "good morning" to my father.

He cut his eyes into the large room behind me and then looked at me grinning like mad.

"I would have to agree on both counts."

"Edward? I have got to ask you where the hell this picture came from," Chip said with a look of mild disgust on his face. I couldn't help but laugh as I saw the photo in question in his mind. "Or more to the point, what the hell it's supposed to be."

I stood from my chair and passed the newspaper in my hand to Carlisle. I walked around to stand directly behind Chip and Alice and looked at the page of the photo album that they held between them. I noticed, for the first time, that Buddy had curled himself around the bottom of Chip's chair. Chip's bare feet were slowly swinging back and forth over the soft coat of the dog at his feet as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Buddy had, almost instantly, become every bit as attached to Chip as he had my wife. He followed Chip constantly and took every opportunity to cuddle up to him.

The pages of the album were open to show eight photos, all of which had been taken about seven years ago. There was one of my sisters and wife dressed in ski gear holding their poles and posing in front of a ski lift at a resort in Switzerland we had visited often. Another showed my brothers and me dressed in ridiculous outfits and standing in a mass of people at the start point for the running of the bulls in Spain. Another showed my wife and me standing atop a waterfall on Esme's Island preparing to cliff dive, both of us sparkling and smiling in the sunlight. There was also one of the entire family that particular year on Halloween. We were all dressed as superheroes and standing in the lobby of the hospital in upstate New York that my father had been working in. And then there was the picture in question.

"That," Alice said with a laugh of her own, "is by far the nastiest story in Cullen lore. Honestly, it took me weeks to get over that little escapade."

"You have to be looking at the Star Wars picture," Carlisle said with a grin on his face as he folded the paper back.

"Of course it is," I said with a louder laugh as I glanced over toward Jasper, who looked somewhat embarrassed. I opened my mouth to tell the tale but was distracted by Jared as he waddled out onto the patio, his pajama covered feet squeaking against the concrete.

Without a word, he walked to Heidi's side and reached up onto the table. His fingers wrapped around the handle to a sharp knife that she had been using to slice her grapefruit with earlier. He clumsily tried to turn with the edge facing away from him.

"What are you doing little man?" his mother asked him in a much more casual tone of voice than I would have been capable of given the circumstances. Her hand on his stomach stopped his progress back toward the family room.

"Paul stolled my pastwy," he said with a shrug, his face completely devoid of any guilt. Apparently, he thought a knife was the perfect retribution for his older brother's theft.

"Well, pastry or not, give that to Mommy," Heidi replied while wiggling the handle of the knife away from him. I had almost relaxed when she set the knife back down on the table. But immediately, she picked up a spoon and gave it to him. "Use this instead."

He smiled gloriously at her before he took of at a kid's speed sprint toward his vengeance. Every one of the vampires at the table absolutely howled with laughter at the exchange. It took only seconds for the yell to carry to our table as Jared attacked.

"Ow! Fudge! You lil a-hole," Paul squealed as his brother carried out his plan.

"Paul," Isa sang happily from her end of the couch. "You're already up to two dollars and you haven't even finished eating, you moron."

"Aww, Isa! The little crapper stabbed me with a spoon. Surely I get one freebie for that!"

I looked to Heidi questioningly at the exchange.

"Every time Paul curses, or his version of curses, Isa charges him a quarter. The "F" words earn double," she finished with a smile.

"So by this point, she has already paid for her college tuition based solely off her brother's inability to control his mouth," Chip finished with a snort. "But back to this picture. Please explain because it's just nasty looking."

"You should have smelled it," Alice said wrinkling her nose.

"It wasn't that bad, Darlin'" Jasper said with a huff. He was slightly embarrassed and not handling that emotion very well, which made it even funnier for the rest of us.

"Bella and my dear husband are both closet Star Wars junkies," Alice started, the memory of that bizarre afternoon played through her thoughts.

"All of us have, at one time or another, gotten random texts from the two of them that turned out to be one-liners from the movies," I supplied, unable to keep from laughing.

"The geek squad has even gone to those god forsaken Star Wars conventions together. They feed each other's disturbing addiction to the sci-fi atrocities like crack addicts," Rosalie added from inside the house, her typical scowl firmly in place. She, above all of us, thought their interest in the movies was juvenile at best and repulsive at worst.

"So my dear children decided to recreate their favorite scene from one of the movies," my father supplied with a chuckle of his own. "They had Emmett take the picture so that they could enter it into a scene contest at one of the events they went to several years ago."

"Okay, I'm completely lost. What does Star Wars have to do with Jasper wearing quite possibly the ugliest blue parka in recorded history and Bells lying inside an animal carcass? That's just…disgusting!" Chip nearly shouted. By this point in the conversation, every single human sitting around the table was laughing so hard their eyes were watering and the vampires were scaring off the nearest wildlife with their own laughter.

Jasper was doubled over he was laughing so hard and poor Chelsea, who was completely new to his gift, was nearly wetting herself she was cackling so hard. It took almost ten full minutes for the sounds of our combined laughter to fade and for my brother to get control of himself enough to quit influencing the rest of us.

"I always knew Bella was screwed up in the best possible way but I had no idea that Cowboy here was equally as messed up," Chip said with a smirk in Jaz's direction. If it had been possible for him to blush, I was positive that he would have in that moment.

"Speaking…speaking of Bella, any idea where they are?" Chelsea asked with her continued laughter making it difficult to understand her.

"The studio," chorused from around the table as I, along with Alice, Chip and Heidi, responded at the same moment.

Our relaxing morning and early breakfast was the direct result of the EverClear parents, and my wife, disappearing sometime in the early morning hours. After what should henceforth be deemed an Olympic event known as getting eight kids under the age of thirteen to bed, we had all gathered in the family room around a blazing fire. The conversation had begun as a round of "catch up on everyone's lives". There were stories of tours, births, marriages…you named it and it was probably discussed. My family were all very much participants in the conversations, relishing in relaying our own adventures over the last two decades. It was the stories of out lives that had lead Chip to thumb his way through the mountains of photo albums that were strewn around the patio.

Around two a.m., when Chelsea and Heidi began yawning, the conversation had somehow turned to…the ridiculous. Bella, JP and Emmett were very aggressively arguing which animated character would be the best one to create a clone of…no, I couldn't believe it either…when JP noticed that when she wasn't vehemently arguing in favor of replicating Batman, that her fingers were twitching in her lap. Less than five minutes after his observation, the musicians had all disappeared. The last any of us had seen of them, they were literally racing each other down the path toward the studio in one of the three golf carts that had arrived two days ago. Immediately upon their arrival, my brothers, JP and I took them out for a "spin" that quickly turned into an all out war of bumper golf carts. The last sight any of us had was of the large dent in the rear fender of the cart that was the perfect shape of Emmett's head.

"Do they always disappear like this?" Chelsea asked, pulling me from my memories of the previous night. I realized, as I looked over at her, that I was smiling like a fool as I remembered my wife's squeal as she rode away.

"Well, not always. But the five of them haven't had this much time together in a very long time," Heidi conceded. "It doesn't really shock me that they took off. I promise they won't be like this the entire time we're here," she finished with a gentle pat to Chelsea's hand.

"Oh, I don't mind. Dimitri has been so relaxed since we arrived. I just wondered if it was common."

"Back in the day," Chip said, a memory of a dingy apartment and a booming thunderstorm outside its window, "they did most of their writing at night. Bella was an insomniac," he said as he cut his eyes toward me, "and JP was simply insane. It used to drive the other tenants crazy."

I looked toward Heidi, who had opened her mouth to add to the conversation, but I was distracted with a small but sharp intake of breath coming from my sister. I looked up into the glassy eyes I knew so well as her vision flashed inside my own head. What I saw drew a gasp of my own.

"Quick!" Alice nearly yelled. "Take Heidi and run like hell to the studio, Edward. When you get there, don't stop until you press the 'record' button on the board. We'll be right behind you. Go!"

Without a single question, Heidi rose and followed me into the garden behind the house. As gently as I could, I pulled her onto my back and took off at a dead sprint toward the rear of the property. It had been a very long time since I'd had a human woman on my back. As the warmth of her body and the softness of her skin pressed against me as the trees flew by at a blur, I let my mind wander back to a long ago time when it was my Bella clutching my neck. I couldn't help but smile as the memories flooded me.

"What exactly are we running toward," Heidi screamed in my ear, her voice tinged with both amusement and fear.

"Not exactly sure," I shouted back loud enough for her to hear above the wind as it rushed past us. "But we learned a very long time ago not to question Alice."

"So for all we know, they could be growing third heads and speaking 'Monkey' when we get there?"

I couldn't help but laugh. Apparently, Heidi had spent far too much time in JP's company.

"Well, I think given the fact that she told me to press the record button we are most likely safe from them speaking like animals," I replied as the cottage that housed the studio came into view.

I tore through the door without bothering to close it behind us and without putting Heidi down, ran to the enormous mixing board in the outer room of the cottage. The lights in the sound proof room at the back of the room were all on, leaving the front room in complete darkness and the two of us invisible to the five people inside.

With more force than was prudent given the equipment's fragile make, I slammed my hand down on the large button that brought the mixer in front of me to life. It was then that I looked into the glass and took in the sight before me, just as the first beats of the drum filled the quiet air.

They were all standing in painfully familiar places around the room. Felix was seated behind the drum kit with Jane to his right behind an electronic synthesizer. JP and Dimitri both had guitars hanging around their necks. And standing behind a mic stand beside the large piano was my wife.

**Do what you what you want**

**If you have a dream for better**

**Do what you what you want**

**If you don't want it anymore**

"Oh my God!" Heidi squealed from beside me as we watched the unbelievable sight before us.

As the heavy guitars joined the mix, JP walked directly up to stand in front of Bella. Between his strokes, he reached up and pulled the tie from her hair so that the ponytail she wore gave way and her hair fell in waves around her shoulders and back. As the same time, Dimitri pulled at the material of her tee shirt, untucking it.

She smiled gloriously at them, took a deep breath and then began to sing again.

**Do what you what you want**

**You're world's closing in on you now**

**Stand and face the unknown**

The last note was raw and powerful. And recalled a voice I'd listened to incessantly to more than twenty years ago on an extremely out of date iPod. As she dropped rather ungracefully onto the piano bench and brought her fingers to the key, the space around me filled up as Alice, Chip, Jasper, Chelsea and Carlisle joined us. JP was slinging himself around the room like some mad conductor as he directed the band on the timing of what was unmistakably a new song.

**Every heart in my hands**

**Like a pale reflection**

**Hello, hello**

**Remember me?**

**I'm everything you can't control**

**Somewhere beyond the pain**

**There must be a way**

**To believe we can break through**

"Dirtier, Bitch!" JP yelled, grinning from ear to ear as he tried to pull more power from her voice. "Gimme more."

As I looked to my wife as she played, I was nearly overcome with pride and love. She was absolutely shining with happiness. Her music was always a release and a joy for her. But playing with the four people in the room with her? She was glowing with happiness. Her eyes were blazing and her body was moving to the rhythm with seemingly no thought.

They continued through the next verse, gathering momentum and volume with each note. It was fucking magical to witness. The five of them all seemed to read each other's minds with chord changes and movements. Even more astounding was that the minds of every one of them were devoid of any thought other than the music they were creating. There was no stress or worries about trivial day to day things. They were all completely consumed with the song.

**There's still time**

**Close your eyes**

**Only love will guide you home**

**Tear down the walls**

**And free your soul**

As she hammered the last note, her head tilted to the right. As the note faded, the music changed tempo and JP, Dimitri and Felix all thrashed their heads around in circles. Her smile would have brought me to my knees if I hadn't been so practiced at controlling my reactions to my wife.

"Come on, make Eddie blow his load," JP barked as the song took another turn and her voice dropped into the lower register than made me insane with lust. As the sensual tone rang through the air, I tried to cover my inevitable reaction with little success.

JP spun in a circle in the middle of the room, his finger pressed to his lips in another signal to the band. Immediately, they all ceased playing and my wife's clear innocent voice whispered the next lines.

**Hello, hello it's only me**

**Infecting everything you love**

**Somewhere beyond the pain**

**There must be a way to believe**

They finished the song in a blaze of screaming guitars, the thrash of the drums and my wife's perfect voice. As the last note faded, they all yelled and threw their hands into the air in celebration. They flew into each other's arms and hugged, jumping up and down like children. The people that surrounded me did the same. Squeals and laughter and exclamations of shock filled the air. But my eyes were locked on hers.

Through the chaos of celebration with her band, Bella looked into the glass that separated the recording room with the outer room. Whether she could actually see me or not, she looked directly at me and mouthed "I love you" silently. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen her look so complete.

I had been wrong when I had thought the reunion was completed by the arrival of the rest of the band. It was then, in that moment, that everything was right in her universe. With the energy of the new song still hanging in the air around us, EverClear was finally and truly reunited.

Chapter Notes: We are on schedule for the weekly updates to continue now. Again, I am sorry I kept you guys waiting so long. Leave me some love and see ya soon.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Twilight but you guys already knew that.

I'm not even going to try and make an excuse for the much to long absence. A combination of the holidays, new boss, new job, new puppy…well, it's been extremely hectic. But that doesn't excuse the delay. Just know that I am very very sorry to have kept you all waiting so long and that I SWEAR it won't happen again.

The next chapter is already half way completed, so it shouldn't be very long until we pick up the pace.

I'm terribly sorry again and thank you all for the sweet emails and PMs asking if everything was okay. I promise that I am not going to abandon the story or you guys.

Chapter 8-Bombshell

EsmePOV

I stood in the open door way and simply stared at the two extraordinary people that were stretched out on the couch in front of the fireplace in the great room. My heart couldn't decide whether to sing with joy at the sight of them wrapped up in a heap of blankets and pillows laughing and smiling together or whether to break at the thought of what was unsaid between them.

"Sweetheart?" my husband's quiet voice whispered from behind me.

"Shh," I encouraged as I looked over my shoulder at the loving face that had been my world for nearly a century. "Don't disturb them."

Without making a sound, he wrapped his arms around my waist and leaned his chin on my shoulder. The comfort his touch brought was a welcome support that I hadn't been aware I craved until he entered the room.

"How long have they been there?" he said so quietly I nearly missed his words. I simply shrugged my shoulders. From the looks of the room, they had been in their own little world for some time.

Chip was sitting upright against the arm of the couch leaning against at least two down filled pillows. He was nearly swaddled from his chest down in blanket that was more appropriate for arctic survival than relaxing in the late afternoon of a fall day. But given the fact that Bella was tucked underneath his arm and cuddled up against him, it made a little more sense. They were talking like two magpies, laughing loudly at frequent intervals and even more frequently, hugging and kissing any part of the other one that they could reach. It was truly endearing to observe.

Endearing, that was, until I caught site of my son standing at the top of the staircase watching the scene below him with a heartbreaking look on his face. Every now and then, he would wince at something he obviously picked out of Chip's thoughts and it wasn't difficult to imagine what he was hearing. The pain on his face was obvious. I just wasn't sure if the pain was for Chip or his wife. Either way, it was tormenting him.

"And Edward?" Carlisle asked, making me wonder if he was actually a mind reader as well.

"About ten minutes. And he hasn't moved an inch since he arrived," I said with a sigh.

A loud snorting laugh echoed through the room, drawing the attention of all three of us. My youngest daughter had her face buried in Chip's stomach and was laughing hard enough to make her double over. The sheer sparkle in her eye as she giggled uncontrollably was enough to make me smile. She was, of all my children, the most open with her emotions. Ironic, really, considering that her mind was the only one closed to Edward. But true none the less. She never seemed to hide what she was feeling from anyone. When she was angry, we knew it. When she was excited, we knew it. And when she was happy? Not only did we all know it but we all reveled in it

It was the knowledge of that very trait that was making my heart lean toward breaking as I continued to watch the two people on the sofa that were completely oblivious to the world around them. The pain, when she learned the news of Chip's illness, would be intolerable for her and impossible to hide. As the thought crossed my mind, I noticed Edward wince visibly. Whatever he was hearing was dark enough to make him physically flinch. I watched, helplessly, as he folded his arms on the banister of the railing and then hung his head. His face, even for the fleeting moment it took for him to change position, looked completely devastated.

"What the fuck is that smell?" Bella asked, pulling all of our attention back toward the room. She had her nose buried in Chip's chest and was inhaling deeply. "It's not cologne. What the hell is that?"

Chip looked utterly stunned for a split second but it was enough to betray the turmoil he had to be feeling. And it was not unnoticed by my youngest daughter.

"What?" she asked, concern written on her face. "What is that?"

"Yo!" JP screamed at top volume from the doorway of the kitchen. I hadn't even realized he'd slipped into the house. I looked up to see him with a bowl of fried chicken in one hand and a drumstick hanging out of his mouth half eaten. God bless him, it was impossible for anyone to look upon the insane sight and not smile. "I want in on the lovin'."

"What do you want?" Chip asked through his laughter. "Jesus, JP! Didn't I teach you better manners than to scream with your mouth full?"

"Eww! That is nasty," Bella chimed in though her own giggles.

"Says the bitch that regularly tears into Bambi for a cocktail," he quipped back as he crossed the room toward the couch. With a very unceremonious flop, he fell onto the couch on Chip's other side and snuggled into him every bit as much as Bella was. It was so excruciatingly sweet, that Carlisle and I both laughed loudly enough for them all to swivel their heads and look at us.

"And for the record, I do not regularly 'tear into Bambi'. I prefer other…kinds of…drinks, thank you very much."

"Santa! I want a Red Rider BB gun and a pony and a robot and a car like Eddie's," JP said, completely ignoring Bella's statement about her diet. "Oh! And I want a machine that I can plug into my brain and make my songs just magically come out."

That comment earned a snort not only from my daughter but from my son as well. Bella twisted her head around and looked at him for what I thought was the first time since he'd taken up residence at the top of the stairs. The smile she gave him was both blindingly beautiful and adoring.

"So? What ya'll doing'?" JP asked as he winked at Chip.

"He was just about to tell me why he smells funny," Bella answered for him before he could even open his mouth.

"What do you mean?" JP asked as he too stuck his nose in Chip's chest and inhaled deeply. "I don't smell nothin'."

The long lanky musician began to fidget in his position tucked into Chip's side, whether to continue trying to smell the scent Bella was picking up on or just to be difficult, I had no idea. But it didn't matter the reasons. Because just seconds after his squirming began, Chip closed his eyes and winced.

"What? What is it?" Bella asked, her face contorted in confusion and concern.

"Nana, I'm sorry dude. I didn't mean to hurtcha," JP said, a look of seriousness on his face that I was positive I had never seen.

Chip kissed JP lightly on the forehead and then turned his head and did the same to my daughter. He closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath, apparently steeling himself to say something unpleasant.

"You didn't hurt me JP, don't worry. But I do need to talk to you guys." I watched helplessly as he began to adjust himself into a more up right position, Bella and JP looking at each other with the questions written all over their beautiful faces. "Actually, I need to talk to all of you. Would you mind getting everyone else for me?"

"You want the youngin's too? Or just the grown-ups?"

"Just the adults. Marcus will stay with the kids if you give him a call."

My heart hurt for my youngest as a deep crease formed on her forehead. She knew that what was coming wasn't good. I could nearly see the wheels in her mind spinning. I cut my eyes to Edward, who had obviously drawn the same conclusion and was now making his way slowly down the stairs.

"Do you want the Cullens also?" she whispered as she caught sight of Edward. Or more specifically, the pained look on Edward's face.

"Yeah, baby girl. Probably best to talk to everyone at once."

Before the sentence was complete, the rest of my family filed quietly into the large family room. Alice had apparently seen Chip's decision and gathered them all. I didn't know if she had given them any information on what was coming but they were all uncharacteristically subdued as they took seats around the sitting area beside the fire. I also noticed that Jasper was standing on Bella's left side in a mirror image of Edward on her right. I knew my son well enough to recognize that he was already trying to calm Bella, picking up on the anxiety that was escalating in her system quickly.

"Are you ready for this?" my husband asked quietly as he placed a soft kiss on my neck. "It's not going to be easy for anyone in this room."

I turned in his arms and placed my cheek against his chest as I hugged him to me. His powerful embrace circled me and gave me the strength to face what was about to happen to my family.

"No, it's not. But if Chip can handle this, there is no reason that we can't either. I just hate to see her hurting."

"I know," he said so quietly that his mouth barely moved. "I do too. But she's stronger than anyone I know and she'll get through it."

We were interrupted by the humans entering the room. Heidi's eyes were locked on JP, while everyone else looked around puzzled at the gathering and somber tone of the room.

"Thank you all for coming," Chip said with no delay. "I know this is…unusual."

"What's up Chip?" Dimitri asked in a lighter tone of voice than his posture would have indicated.

Very gently, Chip sat down in an oversized wing back chair right beside the fireplace that Emmett usually favored. He looked, for the first time, frail as he settled himself into the large chair. I quickly glanced at my daughter and wanted to cry at the look of pain that was written in her eyes.

"About three months ago, I started to feel sort of off," Chip began, his gaze locked on the area rug under his feet. With virtually no sound, Buddy crept into the room and curled up at Bella's feet, his head resting on the top of her foot. "I thought, at first, that I just had a stomach bug or really bad heart burn. But it only got worse over the course of a couple of weeks."

"Chip," Bella said so quietly that I didn't think any of the humans could have heard her. She was gripping Edward's hand hard enough to crush it but he made no move to stop her.

"So Marcus and Heidi," he continued with a small smile in her direction, "convinced me to see a doctor about it. It took some time to finally figure out what was going on with me."

"Nana?" Jane said in a tiny voice that in no way fit with the strong woman that I knew. "Are you okay?"

"No, Janie, I'm not."

Immediately, I smelled the salt of tears from several different directions. JP sat stone still, his eyes streaming and Heidi rubbing small circles on the hand she clasped. Felix tucked a bleary eyed Jane under his massive arm and held her quietly. My own children looked equally as distressed but would not be given the relief of tears to help ease their emotions. Jasper was rubbing Bella's shoulder while also hugging Alice to his chest. Emmett and Rose held hands in a desperate sort of embrace. And Edward, my poor Edward, could do nothing but stare at his wife, seemingly trying to absorb the pain that had to be tearing through her.

Very slowly, Bella slid from her position on the couch onto her knees on the floor. Without moving her eyes from the man that was every bit the father to her that Charlie had been, she walked on her knees toward the chair by the fire. When she was as close as she could get to him, she sat back on her heels and placed her hands into his lap. Chip grasped both hands and raised them to his mouth to kiss her knuckles. They almost seemed to be communicating silently as they stared at each other.

"What's wrong," she said in the smallest voice I had ever heard from my daughter. In my peripheral vision, I saw Edward choke back a sob.

"Pancreatic cancer."

The two words broke my youngest daughter and my heart simultaneously. Her shoulders shook violently as she lowered her head into his lap. His hands softly stroked her hair as he leaned over and kissed the back of her head. She gripped his hips in a very awkward hug, trying to return the comfort he was giving her, all the while whispering the word "no" over and over.

Edward moved to her so fast I couldn't discern the movement. He dropped to his knees behind her and wrapped his arms around her body as tightly as possible. Chip reached out a single hand and placed it on my son's shoulder, whether in thanks or as a gesture of comfort, I didn't know or care.

Pain hung so thickly in the air that even to my immortal body, it was breath-taking. JP had wrapped is arms around his own body and was doubled over at the waist, the tears flowing so violently that he was having trouble breathing. Heidi was having no more luck calming him than Edward was having calming Bella.

"Carlisle, do something honey," I said, my own voice quavering.

I knew, or perhaps just prayed, that the doctor side of my husband would take over and hopefully bring the situation under control before the emotions overtook. As gently as he could, he knelt down beside Chip's chair. He looked around the room carefully. Dimitri, Chelsea, Felix and Jane were all visibly shaken but precariously maintaining their composure, as were Alice, Rose, Emmett and Jasper. With a sad smile, he found the quivering form of JP, still folded in on himself and Heidi trying desperately to soothe him.

My husband quickly stood and without a word, walked to JP and scooped him up into his arms. It was a measure of just how upset JP was that he didn't react on any level to being picked up and carried across the room in the same way a toddler would be. Carlisle sat him down directly beside Bella at Chip's feet. Immediately, JP reached out and grabbed Bella around the waist forcefully. In stunted raw movements, they both clung to each other and looked up at Chip, their identical expressions nearly begging him to tell them it was all a misunderstanding.

With an aurora of strength, my husband knelt back down beside Chip's chair. All eyes immediately fell to him. I couldn't help but smile just a small bit at the compassion echoing in his eyes.

"Chip and Marcus have asked me to act as his physician through his treatment and I have agreed," he began soothingly. "The necessary equipment has already been ordered and should be arriving in a day or two. I promise you, I will do everything in my power to see him through this."

Chip smiled at my Carlisle and with the hand not stroking Bella's cheek, grasped his fingers in thanks and comfort. During the silent exchange between the two men, I also noticed that Edward still had a death grip on Bella's waist and was whispering into her ear non stop. The words were too low for any of us to hear but it didn't matter what he was actually saying. My youngest daughter didn't seem to hear any of them. Her eyes were distant and glassy and focused solely on the older man in the wing back chair. Her voice actually startled me when she spoke just a second later.

"What…what's….the smell?" she said, struggling to contain her emotions.

"I imagine that it's the chemo drugs, Baby Girl. I had started treatment before we left to come out here."

"I've spoken to his doctors," Carlisle said to my daughter. When her gaze didn't waiver from Chip, he reached out and gently touched her cheek to turn her head. She seemed almost dazed to see him sitting so close to her. "We have all agreed on the treatment processes. They did everything right there and we are going to do everything right here. I promise you, Bella, I'm going to take the very best care of him that I can."

"I know," she whispered and closed her eyes. For the first time, she leaned back into Edward's embrace and her hands rested on his forearms that were still locked around her waist. "I just…"she trailed off with a slump of her shoulders.

"I just…" JP picked up for her but with no more luck in finishing the sentence. "Heidi?" he said in such a young voice, I nearly went to him myself. The dark haired beauty flew to his side with nearly vampire speed.

The two couples in the floor at Chip's feet were so different from one another, yet so similar. Both held their spouses above all others and both were trying desperately not to fracture under the weight of the pain they were facing. Edward and Heidi were both holding tight to the people who made up their entire world and they were both struggling. We were watching Bella and JP slowly fall to pieces.

"We're gonna get through this," Chip said calmly, bringing JP and Bella's attention back to him. "I know this came out of nowhere but we are gonna whip it, okay guys? I'm staying here as long as I need to. Carlisle and Esme have opened their house to us for as long as is needed."

"You are all welcome to stay as long as you'd like," Carlisle added, looking around at the other humans in the room. There were small nods and tiny smiles of thanks from them all and I knew that we would have them all for the duration of the treatment. Chip had been right. Now that he needed them, they would all be there for him, just as he had always been there for them.

"What can we do?" JP's broken voice asked the room at large. "What…what is this exactly? I mean, can we do a transplant or something?" He looked up at Chip and my husband with hopeful eyes, the vibrant green irises still flooding with tears. "I mean, if it will help, you can have mine. Can we do that Doc?"

"Aww, my sweet boy," Chip stuttered, tears in his eyes for the first time since he'd started the conversation. "I wish it were that simple. I know you'd give me yours if that would help," he said with a wistful smile as he leaned down and kissed JP's forehead.

"Unfortunately, JP, that's not a course of action we can follow. But thank you. There's really nothing anyone can do except to be here for Chip in whatever way he needs. Edward and I have already ordered the equipment and supplies and will start the treatments as soon as they all arrive."

A shiver ran down my back as my youngest daughter's eyes flashed dangerously. I didn't think anyone else in the room noticed it, certainly not my son who was still crouched behind her hugging her to his body. But I got an ominous feeling that my husband's last statement wasn't going to go over well with her. I knew, as she would have had her rationale been the dominant part of her view, that his withholding this bombshell was at Chip's request. But at that moment, all she knew was that her husband had kept earth shattering information from her.

The nightmarish scene only lasted a few more minutes while each person asked the questions that would hopefully help ease their minds. Neither Bella nor JP moved from their positions at Chip's feet until he wiggled in his chair slightly and stood in an effort to stretch his back. He reached out a hand to both JP and Bella and pulled them into standing positions before him, his face serene and calm.

"We are all going to make it through this, okay? I need for you two to believe that."

They both nodded their head and attempted to smile. Neither of them succeeded. But the attempt seemed to be appreciated nonetheless.

"I'm going to make you some chocolate chip cookies," Bella said in a vacant voice. "You always liked my cookies."

Chip stared at her for a moment, obviously as concerned at the lost demeanor as I was. But neither of us looked as concerned at her far away appearance as Edward did. His face was nothing short of terrified.

"I'd like that Baby Girl," Chip finally answered. Without another word, she turned and headed to the kitchen.

"I need a drink," JP said as he turned toward the doors that would lead him to the back garden. We all scanned the room, our vision alternating between Bella and JP. Both were far from alright but JP did at least seem coherent. As my youngest disappeared into the kitchen, I turned toward my son, the same questions in my head written on his face.

"Is she going to be alright?" I asked Edward quietly as my husband's arm slid around my waist. The comfort was soothing given the last hour's turmoil.

Rather than answer, my son…my century plus year old son, simply looked down at his feet and shrugged. In that moment, he was a young boy whose family was, once again, terminally ill. I couldn't help myself. The pain and uncertainty that radiated from his like the plague was too much for any mother to take. I stepped forward quickly and grabbed him in a bear hug. He didn't even have the strength the hug me back. But his body simply melted into mine. He allowed me to comfort him for a long time. Without thinking, I stroked his hair and kissed his cheek and gently rocked him from side to side. It was all I could think to do in that terrible moment. Finally, with a great huff of breath, he stood up and kissed me back with a soft "thank you".

"I should go check on Bella," he said, the man now fully back in control and exceedingly concerned about his wife. "As hard as I thought this was going to be, it's ten times worse."

As he left our group, we all moved toward the stairs. With my husband's arm still firmly around my waist, I along with Chip and Marcus began the climb to the top of the stairs. I needed something, anything, to do with myself until the emotions could settle.

I busied myself with straightening the bed coverings, while Marcus and Chip puttered around the room unpacking a suitcase. Carlisle simply leaned against the dresser, his arms crossed over his chest. None of us spoke but we all seemed to calm from the repetitive motions and distractions.

We couldn't have been upstairs more than just a few minutes, when the tentative tranquility we had found was, once again, shattered.

"No! You son-of-a-bitch! Don't you fucking touch me!" rang through the house so loudly that the panes of glass rattled in the frames.

We all stared wide eyed and perfectly still as my daughter's voice rang through the house with the force of a bomb.

"Fuck you!" she screamed loudly enough to damage her vocal chords. "You…you knew… and you didn't say a fucking word, Edward. How…how… could… you? How could you keep that from me?" she sobbed and raged simultaneously.

My son's murmured voice was audible as he desperately tried to soothe his wife. But I knew, with nothing more than the recollection of her eyes as she had heard of his beforehand knowledge of the new that had decimated her, that he was, at least for the time being, fighting a loosing battle. There would be no easy calming right now.

The barrage of shattering glass and the sound of metal twisting combined with her continued shrieks of betrayal prompted Carlisle and me to sprint downstairs as Chip began to cry in earnest.

"No, Edward! Don't! Stay the fuck away from me!" was the last of her voice I heard before the sound of a door being ripped from its hinges exploded through the eerily quiet rooms of the house.


	9. Chapter 9

First, let me apologize for the tease. I certainly don't mean to get everyone worked up thinking this is the chapter that you have all waited months for. I am sorrier than I can say that it has taken so ridiculously long to post the next chapter. Real life has not been very nice. In fact, real life has kicked my behind over and over the last several months.

Having said that, the next chapter of EverClear Reunited will be up by the end of this coming weekend come hell or high-water. I am not abandoning this story. To everyone that has sent private messages or emails, "thank you" doesn't even come close. I can never fully express how grateful I am for your continued support. Have a great rest of the work week and I will have the band back up for you this weekend!

Love you all,

Kelly


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